


Occupy Boston

by ChapstickLez, Googlemouth



Series: 'Shipping Up To Boston [3]
Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Crime, Drama, F/F, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChapstickLez/pseuds/ChapstickLez, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Googlemouth/pseuds/Googlemouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A body is discovered at the site of a local protest. It's up to Jane Rizzoli to solve the crime, while keeping a secret from the woman she loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anonymous

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMERS
> 
> Rizzoli & Isles belongs to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro, TNT, and the host of writers, producers, cast, and crew who create the show we love to watch. We are not any of those people.
> 
> Spoilers for Seasons One and Two and the books. Rated T for crime, murder, and a loving relationship with two sexy women.
> 
> This story is Part 2 (third) in a series we've called 'Shipping Up to Boston (so if you haven't read that, some of the undertones in this one won't make sense at all):
> 
> Part 0: The Trevor Project (URL: bit DOT ly/sutb0 )
> 
> Part 1: It Gets Better (URL: bit DOT ly/sutb1 )
> 
> The issues of Occupy Wall Street (and Occupy Boston) will be brought up here. Those of you who hate politics, we hope you can look back on our previous work and trust we'll handle that with as much sensitivity to both sides of the story as we gave to religion.
> 
> Co-written by Chapsticklez and Googlemouth. You can find us on Twitter as chapsticklez and Googlemouth.
> 
> Guest stars in order of appearance: Tahmoh Penikett (Officer Bob Ericson), Garret Dillahunt (Greg Bayless), Billy Burke (Agent Gabriel Dean), Thomas Dekker (Lyle Jenkins), John Slattery (Father Daniel Brophy), Jennifer Tilly (Jennifer Bayless), David Ogden Stiers (Blake Sanden), Stephen Furst (Lawyer).

_Like every major city in the United States, Boston had felt the pinch of a downward economy. Call it a depression, recession or just bad luck, unemployment was up. Everyone was hurting. The only bright spot, if it could be called that, was that winter was coming, and the empty houses meant some safety for the expanded homeless of the city._

_In one of a hundred empty houses in the area, a collection of run down men and women huddled around the living room of an empty house. It was once, years ago, beautiful. Now, clearly, time and emptiness had taken their toll. Paint was peeling, the floor was chipped and scuffed, windows no longer washed regularly. While the sign out front read 'for sale,' there was not a chance in hell this house would find a buyer any time soon, which made it perfect for a squatter seeking shelter on a cold, crisp, autumn night._

_The unauthorized residents didn't light a fire in the fireplace for warmth; that might be seen in a house with no blinds. There was fire, however, its sparkling flames licking at the building's walls. "Fire!" shouted one of the squatters, and quickly they evacuated. It didn't matter if anyone saw them now. All that mattered now was living. They threw open the doors, the windows, and ran. The infusion of fresh oxygen helped the fire to spread that much faster_

_As the ersatz inhabitants huddled down the block, they watched the night's squat go up in flames, one of the watchers noted, "What the hell causes blue flame?"_

_They pondered that until the fire department arrived._

* * *

Having completed her day's full complement of autopsies and paperwork, Dr. Maura Isles set her evening's away messages, sent a text to one of the detectives at BPD homicide, and drove herself home to get an early start on dinner. Neither she nor said detective could claim to work anything like normal hours, but Maura's were a bit closer to them, when she wasn't on call and had not been beckoned out of her comfortable home in the middle of the night for a case. The most often heard phrase in the middle of the night at the Isles residence, in fact, other than a few select word choices that related to nothing but the two people most likely to be found there and certain hobbies they enjoyed sharing, was often a paraphrase of, "Why can't murderers do their thing in the daytime?"

Maura, perky for a mature woman in her thirties, practically bounced in the door, hung up her Burberry coat, divested herself of her purse, plugged her phone into the charger discreetly housed behind a cabinet, and carried the reusable canvas bag from Whole Foods into her kitchen. She'd found some lovely organic spinach and tart-sweet apples for a salad - three salads, actually - and some impressively large, extremely fresh scallops that she'd decided to pan-sear as well. After washing her hands, she got to work cleaning and chopping the fresh greens, dividing them into three bowls, two on good china (but not the _best_ china) and one on a wide ceramic square with almost no rim, a handmade 'artistic' plate.

Just as she was setting the square in front of a large, greenish-yellowish-brownish lump on the floor, the front door, painted a cheerful seaside blue, opened to reveal Angela Rizzoli, mother of the detective with whom Maura spent much of her free time. The lump, an African spurred tortoise named for William M. Bass, the founder of the first body farm, a boon to modern forensic science, opened its mouth to have a bite of his salad, but swiftly (as much as a tortoise does anything swiftly) withdrew into his shell with the noise that Angela brought with her, the innocuous stomping of feet and the raising of a hoarse, coarse voice.

"This is Janie's stuff. She said she was coming by here. Will you give this to her?"

Maura blinked as she stood to look at Angela, surprised at the ill-sealed cardboard box, but more surprised at the way the older woman looked. Angela was no supermodel or fashion plate, but generally looked as though she had taken a little care with her appearance. She generally had on clean clothes unless it was housekeeping time, didn't like to wear anything with stains except one of her many cooking aprons, kept her hair tidy, if not exactly what Maura would consider _done._ Today, therefore, to see her in faded Mom-jeans and a floppy old shirt, with hair mussed, and grease stains on her front, shoulders, knees, and sleeve cuffs... well, it was unsettling. It would have been unsettling on anyone, to Maura's way of thinking, but on Angela it was worthy of a comment.

Not that she could utter it. One did not remark unfavorably upon the appearance of one's secret lover's mother.

Realizing that some response was in order, however, and that she couldn't just stand there staring, Maura quickly nodded. "Of course I'll give her the box, Angela. Will you be coming to dinner as well?" She could not quite stop her eyes from a quick glance over the pleasantly round-bodied woman's appearance, fearful for the condition of her fabric-covered dining chairs.

Huffing, Angela tossed her wild hair out of her face with a toss just like Jane. "No. I'm gonna shower, and I gotta look some stuff up." The mother relented quickly, though. "Thank you for the offer, honey." And with that, Angela stormed out, clearly angry at _something_ , but apparently not at Maura.

"Well I suppose that's an improvement," muttered Maura and she carefully lifted the loose flap of the box to peer within.

* * *

Having passed his detective's exam, Frank Rizzoli Jr. had not yet been assigned to the detectives' squad. He hoped that would be any day now, but at the moment he was still, technically, patrol. And while he was a patrolman who often was assigned to the detectives, sometimes he was still a patrolman assigned to places where the police needed a warm body to hold the line.

"Alright already," Frankie growled at the protesters. "Keep out of the street, okay?"

"Shut up, pig," snarled one of the younger protesters.

Frankie rolled his eyes, and grabbed the arm of his temporary partner. "Come on, Ericson, let it go." Bob Ericson had been cursing back at the protesters all night long, and the last thing Frankie wanted was a fight. "They're just exercising their civil rights. _Off_ the street, man, come on, that's a traffic hazard."

It took a while to convince Bob to go take a break, and Frankie ushered the latest idiot back to the sidewalk. Down the line, one of his academy classmates nodded and properly handled the situation. No sticks, no fists, no arrests. That was their goal.

"We! Are! The 99%!" shouted the group, _en masse,_ and Frankie nodded again. As much as he hated being out in the cold November rain, part of him was delighted to see people protesting. Protesting anything, really.

When the chant changed, he muttered along with them, "This is what democracy looks like."

One of the protesters, an older guy, maybe five or ten years older than Janie, gave Frankie a grin. "Hey, man, you want some coffee? It's cold out," asked the protester.

"You don't even know," groaned Frankie, stepping over. "I been here since four." He took the coffee and sucked it down gratefully. "You guys are holding out, though."

The protester nodded, "Yeah, we're trying. I'm Greg, Greg Bayless."

"Frankie Rizzoli." Hands were shaken.

"How long you think we got before you have to kick the campers out?" Evictions of campers had taken place all across the US already, including some pretty horrible bulldozer attacks in Philly and New York. Frankie prayed he'd never be asked to be a part of that.

They both looked at the tent city in Dewey Square. "I dunno, end of the year if you're lucky." Frankie hunched his shoulders, "I hate this sometimes, man. I promise you, I ain't forgetting you're people like me." He glanced back over his shoulder at Ericson.

One of the other protesters sneered at Frankie as he walked past. As one, Frankie and Greg apologized. "I'm sorry about -" They stopped and laughed. Greg went on. "You know, some people don't get it. You're a cop, but you're one of us too."

Frankie looked down at his badge. "My sister, she's a detective, and she tells me I gotta remember that I wear this badge for other people, like you, and when I do, I always represent them. Not me." Frankie did not add that as soon as Janie had heard he was on Occupy Watch, she sat him down and explained that in no way was he to follow an illegal order. Then she explained the difference and told him to do what he thought was right.

How do you live up to someone like Jane? She just _did_ the right thing, every day, no matter what. Frankie knew he wanted to be a cop because he idolized her. But he'd never gotten the courage to ask his big sister what fire was lit under her to make her want to be a cop. What he remembered was a family dinner, with Nonna and their parents, and little nine-year-old Jane announcing she was going to be a police officer when she grew up. Frankie remembered Nonna dropping her fork and praying right there at the table, and Ma glaring at Pop about it. But more than that, he looked up at his big sister and announced, "Me too!"

He played baseball, which he sucked at, because she loved it more than basketball. He learned to play hockey and football so she could have two-a-sides with the Talucci brothers. When she learned to ride a bike, she turned around and taught him right away so they could race together. He was her baby brother, but he knew the best birthday gift he could have ever bought her was that passing grade on the detective's exam. Proof that he learned from her.

So when she told him to think, he thought. "You use that brain, Frankie. If they tell you to take the tents down and evict them, I'm not gonna tell you to do it or not do it. I want you to think about what's right, what's legal, what we stand for, and make your own decision. I'll back you, either way, so long as you think." Jane dumped that burden on him, treating him like any other cop, but also like her beloved baby brother. She trusted him. He had to live up to it.

"Whole family of cops, huh?" grinned Greg. "I know a lot of the guys here hate you, but you know, I don't forget you're people. Where you from?"

"Revere. Pop ran a plumbing business." At Greg's arched eyebrows, Frankie shrugged, "Wasn't the recession. He got... midlife crisis. Ran off to Florida. My ma's a cook, brother's painting houses."

"Oh yeah? I do construction." Greg dug a card out and handed it over. "Your brother know anyone looking to hire? I could use the work."

Frankie grinned and pocketed the card. "Sure thing, man."

The conversation would probably have continued, but for the shouts that suddenly interrupted them, anger and affront variously expressed by the Occupy protesters and a few rude spectators. "Keep your guys off the street, okay? I don't want any hit and runs." Tossing his empty cup into the trash, Frankie hustled down to where Bob was shouting with another small knot of protesters. _Crap,_ Frankie thought, _just what we all need. Cop who can't stay neutral or shut up._ "Come on, Bob, give it a rest," Frankie objected, shouldering in between the opposing forces.

"Pig!"

"Scum!"

The shouting was only getting worse. The shriek of terror, however, was worse than the shouted insults, and cut across them like an audible version of lightning. "He's _dead_ ," screamed a woman.

Bob and Frankie forgot the fight. "Call the EMTs, Bob," ordered Frankie, ignoring the fact that Bob was his superior. Frankie charged the line like a thoroughbred, jumping over seated, arm-linked, protesters, "Move it! Emergency!" He splashed through the muddy grass and skidded to a stop where a shoe-less, suited, man lay on his back. "Who found him? Did you move him?"

The shuddering woman shook her head, "You kidding me? I watch _Law & Order._ I took his pulse, and that's it."

Kneeling in the wet grass, Frankie pressed two fingers to the man's neck. He smelled of cheap alcohol and something else he couldn't place. Smoke? Dirt? No pulse. Frankie went through the ABCs (airway, breathing, compression), but as he started compressions, chanting 'Stayin' Alive' in his head, his attention was arrested by the dead man's feet.

No shoes. Dry socks. Frankie could feel the soil soaking his knees, and he'd only been there through a chorus of the Bee Gees. This wasn't just a dead guy. This was a body dump. "Bob! Call Dispatch. We need a detective."

* * *

It was closer to eight than the promised 'soon' the detective had predicted at five, when Jane finally made it to Maura's. The scent of something warm and comforting carried the lanky, curly-haired detective up the sidewalk. _God, I hope that's coming from her place,_ she hoped, and as it became clear that the fragrance was too strong to be coming from one of the houses further away, started salivating, along with her tiny, scrappy, scruffy dog. _You and me, Pavlov. Wait, Pavlov wasn't the dog. That was the science guy, right? I bet the dog was named something like Buster or Spot or some dumbass..._ Jane's thoughts broke off with guilt as she glanced down at Joe Friday, whom she had not named, but who still had to carry the moniker to which she'd early on decided to answer.

She opened the door and immediately squatted down to release Joe from her leash, hang it up by the hook Maura had discreetly installed for the purpose, and glanced around to locate her lover. There she was, clothing spread all over the couch, most of it on hangers, looking serious. _And seriously hot. Thank you, Jesus and Santa Claus._ "Sorry," Jane said, taking off boots and jacket at the door. "I stopped to walk Joe. I think she's getting to like it better when I leave her alone. Wonder what she does all day."

"Mmnn-nn," Maura negated the idea absently, still focused on the array of clothing as she stood back to survey the well-organized mess. "She's probably just resigned to it. Almost all Canids are social animals and can't thrive unless they live in groups. Even a pack omega prefers to be a part of the pack rather than a loner." The caramel-haired woman - _What was that color?_ Jane mused as she watched, ostensibly heading to the kitchen for something warm to drink, but really wanting to sneak a peek at whatever was in the oven that smelled so good. _Blonde, brown, red?_ It changed every so often, thanks to a colorist with a willing experimental subject who viewed hair as a toy, or perhaps an object to use as art, fashion, and expression of mood, all in one. _Well, whatever the hell it is, it's sexy._

Joe, after sniffing a hello to the obliging Bass, wandered off to gnaw her rope toy on her little designer doggie bed that Maura had purchased. "Must be why she likes coming over here," mused Jane, refilling both canine and geochelone water dishes.

"Joe needs, at the very least, you," Maura was saying. "She'd probably be even happier with access to more creatures. Tortoises feel the same way, you know. They live in family groups called bales... "

Forgoing her own drink, Jane swung back around to where Maura was organizing clothes. "Maura," she sighed, and went for the fastest way to shut the brainiac up. She kissed the side of Maura's neck very, very, lightly. "Hi." Sometimes it was okay to tell your girlfriend you didn't want to get into the nitty gritty details of science. And sometimes it was a better idea to distract her. "What's with the clothes?"

Though Maura seemed committed to the piles of clothes and the rambling about non-human social structures, Jane was gratified to note that her distraction technique worked within seconds. Maura leaned back into her arms and hummed in contentment, tilting her neck for easier access. "Mmm. Mm? Oh. Clothes. Yes. I was sorting out which need to be replaced, last month. Now I'm deciding which things in _this_ pile are probably not going to be worn until the spring, so I can rotate them out of the main closet, and which things in _this_ pile are just about ready to go into my fall and winter rotation so they should come back to the main closet. Oh, that feels nice. Don't stop."

The neck kisses were, in fact, lovely - from both their points of view - but Jane had to stop after all. She did want that hot drink, if she could get it and also steal a view at dinner. Despite Maura's pleading tone, which was usually very effective, Jane released her gently and made for the kitchen again. "This doctor I know keeps telling me to hydrate," teased Jane.

Maura pouted. "Fine. Anyway, where were you? We were supposed to eat an hour ago, and the roast beef might be dry by now."

Jane hesitated as she checked the electric tea kettle, skirting around the box on the counter. _Never let on to Korsak I like tea. Maura's tea, at least,_ she told herself. "I caught a call. Just old case stuff, lawyers and case notes. Nothing new. Some of those guys talk forever, and I really don't want to think about it right now." Jane popped the oven open for a sniff. "Is Ma coming over? I saw her lights on."

"She already came," Maura replied, removing a sweater set from one pile and depositing it into another, then frowning and moving it to a third pile. "She left a box of things for you on the counter."

 _Oh, right._ That thing that was in Jane's way while she made tea probably had an actual purpose for being there. _Damned work day and phone calls and crap, screwing up my head._ "What's in it?"

"You're asking me?" Maura replied sassily, with a smile. She'd picked up that particular speech pattern from the Rizzolis, and had been eager to try it out.

Jane looked over at Maura, smirking. "Cute." She placed one finger, delicately, under the opened flap of the box. "My keen detective mind shows me that this box has been opened at least once. It also tells me that this is the same kind of box she had at her street sale, which means Ma repacked it at least once. _However_ , years of living with Ma have taught me that she can never get these boxes to fold in on themselves this well, which means my girlfriend was snooping." Smugly, Jane raised one hand in the air. "All the points to me, thank you, I'm in charge tonight." At Maura's huffy look Jane repeated her earlier question, "What's in it? Or should we wait till after dinner?"

"I don't really know," replied Maura, plucking up clothing from the smallest pile of clothing and folding it. "If you're as hungry as I am, let's wait, though. I want to get these things put away, and then have dinner." She lay the first item in a large, empty box marked Give Away, then picked up another.

Conceding, due to the volume of her growling stomach, Jane left the box alone. "Aw, I like that black dress! It makes your curves look all... " Jane trailed off, making a gesture with both hands, clearly indicating appreciation for Maura's form. "Curvy. Sexy. Not that you're not always sexy, but that's like extra sexy."

Though she smiled, Maura seemed a touch uncomfortable as she said, "I liked that one, too." Nevertheless, the dress went into the charity box, a gesture of finality as if laying it to rest. In fact, as Jane mused over it, hadn't she done the same with every garment that wound up in that box?

"What's wrong with all of these?" the detective wanted to know as she lifted the dress back out, followed by a sweater, a pair of trousers, two more dresses - and it was the detective, not the girlfriend, asking. Maura would not meet Jane's eyes. "Maura?" Jane ducked her head to force visual contact. "What's wrong with these clothes?"

Fortunately, during the time they had been together, Maura had learned to shorthand some things. "Associations."

Jane paused; so did Maura. "Okaaaay," Jane hesitated. "So... Okay, this one you wore to Paddy Doyle's funeral." Inwardly, Jane winced. Hadn't meant to bring up Maura's biological father, the mob hitman Jane herself had shot. "I get that. This one, you were dating Lucky Schmucky -"

"Byron _Slucky_ ," Maura corrected, "and not just dating him. This one, he... " She took a moment to choose discreet wording. "... particularly liked." Those, and the others, she took back and began to fold. Others, she folded with even greater speed, picking up the rhythm.

Tilting her head to watch Maura sort clothes, Jane mentally kicked herself for bringing up Maura's father _and_ the doctor she'd been dating after Jane was shot. _Why not go for the trifecta and bring up Brophy?_ she asked herself and then froze as Maura turned slightly away from her, folding a black dress Jane viewed - rather, had viewed, before just now - with particular fondness. _Oh. Brophy. Slucky. Ian, too, I bet. That would make sense._ Jane sighed and then forced herself to find that normal, Rizzoli flippancy. "Whatever you've gotta do, Maura." And Jane went to set the table with the good, not the best, dishes. "I'm on call tonight, but you can drink if you want to."

Maura replied without looking back at Jane, "Whatever you're having." And Jane resigned herself to having a slightly awkward dinner.

It didn't go as badly as she'd feared, though. Once the box of ex-boyfriend and father funeral clothes was out of sight, Maura relaxed a little, which helped Jane. Not fully; the conversation wasn't entirely easy, but at least they could talk about the portions of their day that they hadn't spent together, which became particularly amusing when a certain dispatcher's remarks were reviewed. "Yeah, I ran into her in the elevator," Jane said over the last few bites of roasted carrot and potato. "Just us, so you know she had to give me guff about the last time she called you and got me answering the phone. I swear, we're going to have to put one of her kids through college, one of these days, to keep that mouth shut."

"Not really," Maura replied with a gleam in her hazel eyes. "As it happens, she asked me for medical advice about a subject she wouldn't want to get around, either. Since she asked advice from a friend who's a doctor, and not from a doctor treating her, I'm not bound by doctor-patient confidentiality on that issue. A fact of which I reminded her only last week."

Jane snickered, then looked a bit alarmed. "So, the stuff I ask you -"

The smaller woman's hand stretched forth to lay reassuringly atop Jane's. "No. I consider myself bound, even if the law doesn't require it, when I discuss medical issues. But _Caroline_ doesn't know that, does she?"

Exhaling in relief, Jane squeezed Maura's hand. "Good, cause some of that stuff... I should really be asking my doctor, huh?" Chagrined, Jane poked the last, lonely, carrot on her plate. "Okay, I wanna see what's in my box. Maybe it's more clothes we can donate." Jane popped to her feet, scooping up both empty plates. "Did I tell you she dumped all my kid clothes off at my place? Talk about heavy hinting for grandkids."

Maura took advantage of Jane's antics to admire her athletic form. "Considering that as far as she knows you're not dating anyone, perhaps she just wanted more space in her home. The cottage really isn't much bigger than your apartment, you know." While Maura attempted to keep the annoyance of Jane's reticence to 'out' their relationship out of her voice, it was still pitched a bit whiny.

"Probably," muttered Jane, avoiding the subject of babies and closets all together for a bit. She hunched her shoulders a little, like a turtle, and loaded the dishwasher. "Go open my box!"

True to form, however, not only did Maura entirely miss what Jane considered a golden moment for a _that's what SHE said_ mention, but she actually put away the leftovers and cleared the dishes to the dishwasher before actually approaching the big cardboard container - which, by that time, Jane had already decided was her own purview.

" _Sorry!"_ exclaimed the dark-haired woman as her scarred hands drew out a smaller box from the larger one.

Maura's head tilted as she sat down nearby. "Sorry for what?"

"No, the game. _Sorry!_ is a board game. You know." Jane glanced up and, catching Maura's puzzled expression, felt her stomach clench. How would Maura know anything about these classic American childhood games? Probably nobody in her acquaintance had ever played them. "Well. No, you probably don't know. This is what the 'other half' does for fun, instead of taking a weekend jaunt to Europe. Oh, look, and there's _Clue!,_ and _Life,_ and _Risk,_ and - Oh, my God, look at that! _Twister!"_

Maura's expression failed to change. She simply waited expectantly for any illuminating, usable information to be thrown her way.

"I might as well be speaking Chinese," Jane reflected aloud, then shook her head as Maura started in on her.

There were, apparently, a huge variety of languages spoken in China, and while Chinese was a nationality, there was no single Chinese language, any more than there was a single Chinese ethnicity. The languages in particular were... something about groupings, Jane didn't listen... Speech characteristics, still not listening... Hunan, Cantonese, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, Jin, Kejia, Xiang, Yue, Gan, Guan - Jane broke in. "Yeah, some of 'em do speak Guano," she waved it away, getting it wrong for the sheer joy of watching Maura having to decide between wanting to correct a simple mispronunciation, continue her impromptu dissertation on languages and dialects spoken in China, and distaste at the notion of one of those beautiful languages being misnamed as a synonym for bird poop. Mentally she counted points for having made Maura make that face.

"Okay, look," Jane leaped up, short-circuiting the entire process. "We're going to play this one. Help me move the table out of the way. We need some floor space." With no alternative to acquiescence, Maura stood as well and assisted as Jane directed. Soon the floor was cleared, then covered with a big plastic mat. "Now, just gimme a minute to check," Jane said, then dove for her phone. "I'm pretty sure... " Her voice trailed off, then exploded in triumph. "Aha! There _is_ an app for this!"

"For what? What are you downloading?"

The glee on Jane's face, Maura decided, had a decidedly unholy glow. "Socks off, Isles," declared Jane, taking the time to yank hers off and roll the cuffs of her pants up just a bit. Reluctantly, her girlfriend followed suit. "Spin," she told the phone, and it made a rattling, plastic on plastic, sound.

" **Right. Hand. Green,"** said the phone, in a somewhat polite, if disjointed, female voice.

Without hesitating, Jane slapped her right hand on a green circle and waited. And waited. "Maur, come on. Right hand, green," demanded Jane, ignorant of the fact that her tush was in the air, aimed at Maura.

It took a long moment for Maura to respond, first because of the angle of sight, and then because even when she decided to pay attention, she wasn't certain what the words meant. Jane's insistent pointing at her right hand, then at the row of green circles, helped. "Oh! Of course." She walked around Jane to the section of mat with more space, in front of her, and dropped to a squat to put her hand on one of the circles. "Okay. Now what? When does the game start?"

Clueless.

Jane hung her head for a moment, letting her hair obscure her face. "Spin!" she said, loudly, and the phone did its thing again. This time is was right foot red. "Okay, so you follow the cues, Maura. Put your right foot - the _other_ foot, sweetie - on a red circle." As Maura did so, Jane teased her, "Which one of us is the genius again?"

"I was looking at you," Maura retorted, primly. "I don't understand why this is supposed to be a fun children's game, Jane. It's simply following directions and putting hands and feet on colors."

"It's for young adults, Maura, not little kids. Spin!" This time it was left foot on blue. Jane frowned and carefully pulled her left foot in and stuck it on the blue dot between Maura's leg and arm.

Maura complained. "Hey, that's my circle. I had it first."

"You can use the same dot as I do, if you have to," Jane informed her, realizing that her girlfriend not knowing _any_ of the rules could play to Jane's advantage.

"But you're getting in my way," Maura pouted, and chose a different dot. "Does yellow come next?" she asked, twisting into a position that would have impressed Brock, their yoga instructor.

Jane almost laughed as she explained that the spinner was random, so yellow might or might not come first. Almost. Instead, she stammered something about the matter which she hoped was helpful, while noticing that she was just about nose-first in her girlfriend's abs. _Lord bless the pervert that created that crop-top thing she wears around the house._ "Uh. Yeah, maybe. The spinner gets to decide what part and where it goes." _Please, please..._ "Spin!"

The spinner's neutral female voice handed out the next instruction. **Left. Hand. Green.**

"Oh. Oh, dear."

"Just move your hand, Maur."

"Yes, but... "

"Do it."

"I'll be backwards."

"It's allowed. Just move your hand."

Maura tentatively flipped her body position so that she was in a crablike posture, torso facing the ceiling, weight on her hands behind her and her feet in front of her. "I'm backwards," she noted, as predicted. "Are you sure I'm doing this right?"

Jane, having a lovely up-shot view of Maura's body, just grinned ear to ear. "Perfectly. You sure you've never played before?" Unlike Maura, Jane had positioned herself so she was facing downward. This seemed like a great idea, until she called out, "Spin!" again and had a rude awakening.

**Left. Hand. Blue.**

Both women paused and stared at the row of blue dots. Maura's face puckered into a tightly grim frown. "Is this _really_ how you play the game?" she asked, in her most serious tone.

"Honestly, the last time I played it, we were kinda drunk." Jane hitched up her shoulder and squirmed until she wedged her hand on blue. And her face right there, with a clear view of Maura's abs and boobs. _Hello, nurse,_ sighed Jane, mentally. "Right. Blue, left hand. Do it or lose it, Maur."

With far more skill than Jane possessed, and with silent thanks sent to years of ballet and yoga instructors, Maura did not attempt to try and put her left hand further underneath her. Instead, she pivoted and flipped over, her hand landing neatly on the blue dot under Jane's torso. "Oh," she said, surprised. "Suddenly I see the appeal." Maura's face was within range of Jane's neck. She inhaled deeply. Even a full workday couldn't quite overpower the warm, comforting scent of just pure _Jane_ emanating from her lover's throat. Maura poked her head forward to get a little closer, just wanting to put a little lip print on that long neck.

She failed to take her height, or Jane's, into account.

She also failed to understand that, while in good shape, Jane wasn't in _quite_ the same shape Maura was. A position Maura could have held for another two or three minutes was making Jane very uncomfortable. She lifted her rear end slightly, wanting to straighten her legs _before_ one or both of them started to cramp. The problem was, Jane was a good five inches taller than Maura, which meant that when she lifted, not only were Maura's feet no longer on the mat at all, but also, her weight had nowhere to rest but on Jane's back.

"Oh, shit," Jane grunted, then squealed as Maura's arms left the mat too, wrapping around her waist and holding on for dear life. A leg followed, bracing itself around Jane's.

There was a squeal at the tickling, then another at the sensation of falling, then a thud of two bodies hitting the mat.

As they lay there, panting and laughing, Maura chose not to resist the impulse to entangle them further, going in for the cuddle. "Hey," she said quietly.

"Hey." Jane was smiling, clearly not upset at the results of the game.

"I like this game."

"Told you."

A few very pleasant minutes later, when each of the women was about to voice a distinct apathy towards a return to the official rules of Twister in favor of an even more interesting game, perhaps in a softer location, "Five O'Clock World" rang out from one of the iPhones nearby; another, with "Body Beautiful" by Salt 'n' Pepa. Both showed images of the precinct rather than individual faces. "Drat," Maura muttered as she picked up one of the phones. "Isles."

Slightly more vocal in her displeasure, Jane growled, "Damn it!" Snatching the other phone, she announced herself, "Rizzoli."

There was a brief pause of confusion before Jane, silently, held the phone in her hand up to Maura. Trading phones, they repeated their names and listened to the information from dispatch. A body was found in Dewey Park, where the Occupy Boston campsite was located. Officer Rizzoli suspected a murder.

"Have CSU meet me there," directed Maura, carefully getting off of Jane. "Is it still raining? No? Alright, thank you."

"Tell Korsak and Frost I'll be there with Dr. Isles." Jane thumbed her phone off without further comment, but did not move to get up.

Maura stretched and then mused, "Perhaps getting you the same phone I have was a poor choice, Jane."

"Ya think!" grumbled the detective. "Swear to god, Caroline's going to clean up in the pool, one of these days."

"Caroline's house has a pool?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Review, and Twister makes a comeback.


	2. Two: Suit and Tie

To say the scene was tense would be putting it mildly. Given the weather, Maura was dressed 'down', or at least wasn't in impossibly high heels again. The boots were not something Jane would have considered appropriate, but Maura swore they were waterproof and had non-skid soles. At least the heel was only an inch. Sadly, even though Maura was dressed as close to 'normal' as she ever got, it wasn't normal enough for today.

"Scum! Scum! Pig!" Maura shied away from the shouting crowd, edging closer to Jane and Frankie and looking visibly distressed at the anger some of them seemed to bear towards them all, and herself in particular.

Jane winced at the shouting and looked over at her brother, who was vaguely embarrassed. "You said everything was fine."

"Ericson remembered he was in charge. Korsak's already at the body."

Well, that would do it. Jane nodded, "Frost, would you go relieve Ericson before he causes an incident?" Her partner flashed a thumbs up and went the other direction, to where Ericson was shaking his fist. "Okay, let's go see the body, Frankie."

The area was cordoned off carefully, still allowing access to the various tents, and most of the officers were simply keeping the crowds back. To Jane's surprise, a lot of the protesters were also helping control the crowd, sitting in the mud with their arms linked, making a clear path. "Maybe the Doc ought get between us," muttered Frankie.

"Good idea," sighed Jane, gently steering Maura so she was wedged between the Rizzolis.

"You're overreacting, they won't hurt me, Jane." She sounded mostly sure.

"Tell that to that lady from the Coast Guard what got spat at by these guys," grumbled Frankie, keeping alert as they walked down the path. "I got CSU trying to take casts of footprints, but they said the ground's too wet."

"Come on, Frankie, you know those idiots weren't part of Occupy," Jane defended. "And you saw that on FOX." The siblings shared a look and nodded. "Maura, you're just really well dressed."

Momentarily, Maura let herself be distracted enough to smile. "Thank you. It's not one of my favorite outfits, but I've worn it often enough that it doesn't really look its best anymore, and I thought it would be better for a crime scene than a date or some other social occasion in which... " She stopped, though, as two Rizzoli faces turned towards her.

As one, the siblings demanded, "Really?" Maura hushed. Another _Really?_ later, and she formed a hypothesis.

"You're saying that's why some of these people are upset at me?"

"Yes." Again, they spoke as one, though Frankie added quickly, "These guys are mostly broke, mostly because the economy's in the tank, and most of them are out of work."

Jane finished her brother's thought, slightly more gently and quietly. "The way you look, Maur, you're a reminder of... " Discreetly, her warm brown eyes traveled over Maura's attire. Darkening which resulted from a widening of the pupils indicated her familiarity with what lay beneath that elegant attire. "... luxury."

"I'm aware," Maura replied, warming under that look, "but I support their position. Surely they can see that I'm just here to do the work that the city needs me to do. I'm here to help, not to interfere with their protest. A medical examiner's duty puts all other considerations of political affiliations and sentiments aside."

Frankie looked a little confused as to the eye-exchange happening between his sister and the medical examiner. However he settled for snorting, "They'd probably have been okay with that, Doc, till Ericson started giving us all a bad name."

For Maura's sake, Jane elaborated, "His wife got laid off, and he decided to blame these guys instead of the economy, which is stupid. But y'know, there's a reason Ericson never got promoted. Ever." Jane took advantage of her height to look for Korsak. "Anyway, he's making a bad situation worse."

The trio paused in the muddy park. Korsak was squatting by the body, purple gloves on, checking the pockets. "CSU thinks you suck, Frankie," he announced gruffly.

"Hey, it's not my fault I caught a DB in a rainy field. Filled with people."

The chance of trace evidence being found on the ground was slim to none. "Did you find any ID, Korsak?" asked Jane, pulling her own gloves on and making room for Maura to inspect the body.

"Just the lint," sighed Korsak.

Instead of looking at the head or neck, Maura's attention was fixated by the feet. "Where are his shoes?" she asked Frankie, gently touching one socked foot.

"Found him like that. The woman who found him swore up and down she just checked for a pulse. I started CCR when I got here, but stopped when I saw the socks."

"Credence Clearwater Revival?" asked Korsak, confused.

Maura explained. "Cardio-cerebral resuscitation. It's been proven that pumping the blood through the body results in a higher survival rate than traditional CPR, in part due to the simplicity of the action. Chest compressions are easier to do semi-correctly than the 'breath of life,' which requires attention be given to the position of the neck and spine. Ideally you'll provide the pumps at a rate of one hundred per minute..."

It was Frankie who stopped the exposition. "Yeah, I pumped to _Stayin' Alive_. Just like you told me." Maura flashed the younger Rizzoli an endearing smile, which made Frankie puff up.

"Yeah, all right," Jane broke in, stepping between her brother and her girlfriend with a scowl. _Cock-block Rizzoli, that's me._ "Whatever. Look at you, Maura, talking when there's science to do!"

Reminded, the medical examiner bent to have a look at the body before it was moved, frowning in concentration. "Why," Frankie asked his sister, "does she always come in and look at the body, when she won't even tell you anything till after she gets the autopsy done?"

"Because," Maura replied even swifter than Jane could, "if I didn't look at the body _in situ,_ I wouldn't know what I could only learn by seeing the body before it's been moved. For instance," she stood, approached the pair of them, and lowered her voice so no one else would hear her, "I wouldn't be able to tell you that the deceased has been redressed. I don't know what he was wearing before, if anything, but I do know that this victim was dressed by someone else, rather than dressing himself." Maura pointed at aspects of the clothing that indicated external assistance.

Frankie took a closer look, "You mean they changed his clothes after he was dead?" The young officer started to turn green, and Korsak smirked. Apparently it wasn't _just_ Frost with a weak stomach.

Before Maura could say it, Jane popped in, "That would be prejudging the evidence." She and Maura shared a smile. "Besides, they could have dressed him when he was unconscious, before he died."

Maura beamed at Jane. "Also, the suit and socks are brand new. Never worn before they were put on the body. There's a little mud on the heels, but none on the soles. It would be reasonable to infer that our victim did not walk naked to this location, put on clothing including socks in which he stood, and then lay down to die." She paused before adding, incidentally, "The tie isn't quite as new. It's from two years ago, and it wasn't just kept in a box for two years. It's not worn out, but it's been worn."

Korsak looked down at his own tie, perhaps wondering what Dr. Isles would infer from his attire.

Jane's hand whacked out to one side, the back of it smacking against her brother's stomach in a mute reminder that he should be hitting the gym a little bit more. "See? Okay, anything else, or do you want us to do our thing and meet you back for autopsy in the morning?"

"Morning," Maura replied, smiling the smile of the smug and vindicated. "I'm going to go home and back to bed." She started to head back to her car, but was arrested - mental pun intended, she thought - by Jane's hand at her shoulder.

"Yo. Dr. Death."

Maura turned, expecting an explanation with one brow raised. "Yes?"

"You're my ride."

Korsak, having exhausted the statements of those who had found the body, strode up with his notebook just snapping closed. "I'll take you home after, Rizzoli," he offered, like the big teddy bear he was.

Maura looked distressed as she glanced at Jane, but could apparently not think of a reasonable negation of that plan. Fortunately, Jane could. "Nah, back to Maura's. My car's there."

Frankie's head pulled back in some surprise. "Why were you at Maura's?" he wanted to know. "Why not Ma's place?" Since it was the same home, shared driveway and all, he had a legitimate question: why was she thinking of it as her friend's place rather than their mother's?

"Dinner," Jane replied easily. "What? She made roast beef."

* * *

"I don't see why you always eat with the Doc," pointed out Korsak, as he and Jane walked into the cafe the next morning.

"She's prettier than your mug," Jane teased. "Besides, we're friends. That's what friends do."

"Paint each other's nails, too." Korsak could never claim to have been as close to Jane as Maura seemed to be. Even when they'd been partners, before Hoyt, and she'd known all his secrets, Jane had been reserved. Part of it was being the lone female in the department, but the other part was that as similar as Jane and Vince were, they fought different battles on their way up.

And, yeah, part of Vince hated it that Jane was so close with Maura and not him. _I'm her damn partner,_ he complained to himself. _We're supposed to be like a married couple, without the married._ Partners confided in each other, and it was pretty obvious Janie was keeping some secrets.

Personal stuff? Things okay at home? She dating somebody? Bad boyfriend? Good boyfriend? Breakup? Was she crooked? _Now you're just being stupid, Vinnie boy,_ he told himself sternly. Still, there were ever-increasing walls between them, more even than after Hoyt had left her feeling that Korsak couldn't trust her to be strong like a partner should be. That one was mending, but these new ones were there. Vince could feel them, and they didn't feel good.

"What had you so late with Cavanaugh yesterday?" asked Vince, casually, as they left the stairwell.

"Inter-department crap." Jane replied swiftly, much in the same tone as she used when explaining why she'd needed to be dropped off at the Doc's at 1am. "It's that stuff with OC." Without further explanation about her involvement with Organized Crime, something Korsak understood had to do with an informant of Jane's, Jane went into the cafe.

Korsak followed, perking up considerably as the sight of Rizzoli's mother provided impetus for him to put his misgivings about his partner's secrets on the back burner. There was a good woman. Angela deserved better than what Frank Rizzoli had done, leaving her with no warning and with no resources, not even the house she had kept for him for their thirty-odd years of marriage, to go gallivanting off to Florida with some chippie. Not that Vince knew, or cared, whether it was really a chippie or just another good woman that Frank had charmed.

He'd always liked Frank Rizzoli, Sr., Vince had, and to a large extent envied his good fortune at having been able to hold onto Angela for as long as he had (until _he_ was ready to do the dumping, Vince's left-side-shoulder devil added snarkily), having three terrific kids, a good business, a safe life... but there were limits to that liking, and Korsak had come up hard against those limits in the person of Angela herself. However easygoing, nice, mild-mannered - Jesus, he was like Clark Kent without the Superman - However great Frank Rizzoli had seemed, he must be a gigantic rat-bastard to hurt a wonderful, sweet woman like Angela. Vince spared a mental snort for Frank, for the whole situation. _He_ wouldn't do that to her. Not for all the justified-shooting rulings in Boston.

Angela was head down with her OCD boss, Stanley, and Korsak felt a fluttering moment of jealousy. "Janie, Vince, what are you doing here?" she asked, as if people walking into a cafe was a rarity.

Sharing a look with Vince, Jane cleared her throat, "Trying to get some coffee that wasn't made in the Cretaceous period?"

"What Crustacean period?" Angela mis-repeated, demonstrating that that thing Jane did with Maura's larger words was, if not a genetic trait, certainly learned early in the Rizzoli home. "I didn't know lobsters got their periods."

"And now we've gone into the territory of _Oh, God, shut up,_ Ma! Is the coffee fresh or what, and before you answer, I only want to know about the coffee, not," her hand waved in indistinct motions indicating a plethora of nasty concepts, "squishy girl stuff. Nobody's trying to hear that over their pancakes and eggs."

Vince, to be sure, did look as though he'd rather not have heard it. Gamely, however, he remarked, "Points for knowing what a crustacean is." A glance towards Stanley caused the man to stop hovering and mumble something about salt shakers needing to be refilled as he beat a shifty-eyed retreat. "What's eating him?"

"Nothing. And we're out of pancake mix." Angela hustled over to collect two cups of coffee for her daughter and partner.

"How do you run out of pancake mix?" wondered Jane, sitting at a table and yawning. "I thought Stanley always over-ordered."

Angela hesitated and gave Korsak a look. "Well, this time he forgot. Is there a problem? Can't people forget?" When Jane rolled her eyes at her mother, Angela shook her fist in Jane's direction. "What were you doing at Maura's so late anyway?"

To Vince's surprise, Jane got cagey. "I left my car there. Korsak dropped me off after our call last night. Coffee, Ma?"

Dutifully, Angela brought over the coffee. "So you stayed till the morning?" Angela pursed her lips as if knowing a secret.

"Yeah," Jane said nonchalantly into her steaming cup, "I had a few beers and she snaked my keys away from me. What, you want me to drive home under the influence? You're a bad parent." She winked up at her mother to show that at least some of that was just teasing, but the way Angela was looking at her made her squirm on the inside.

As Angela gave Jane the fish eye, it was clearly time to jet. "Anyway, I gotta go. Meet you at the autopsy, Korsak?" Without waiting for an answer, the tall woman beat a hasty retreat. Time to regroup and feel confident for next time someone threw her a curve ball. Nothing like a pre-autopsy visit to the morgue to brighten her day.

With Jane out the door, Angela turned her steely gaze to Korsak. "She's not telling us something," said the woman, her mother's intuition in full swing. "Do you remember last year, year and a half ago, when Maura's mother got hit by that car? The two of them were hating on each other. Now it's like nothing happened."

Korsak used his coffee as an excuse not to answer that right away. He knew Jane had killed Maura's biological father, but as far as he'd known, no one had explained that to Angela. "It was a tough case," he temporized.

But Angela waved that off. "The point is that those two are hiding something."

That caught Korsak off guard. _Two?_ He looked after Jane curiously. "They're just best friends," he hedged again. It wouldn't be right to tell Angela his suspicions before telling Jane, or the Doc for that matter. And what did he think. _They're in love, but I wonder if they know that? I wonder if they know I don't give a rat's patoot._ Well, that was a subject for a different day.

Angela made a noise indicating she did not agree, but would let it slide. "I needed to chase her off anyway." At Korsak's inquiring look, Angela lowered her voice. "We got a little problem."

"We?" he asked carefully.

"Me and Stanley."

Korsak's heart broke a little bit. OCD Stanley? He tried to keep disappointment off his face. "I'm sorry about that," Korsak said evenly. He stopped leaning on the table and considered how to get out of this conversation, and room.

Like a meerkat keeping lookout, Angela straightened up, glanced around to ensure privacy, and hunched back down. "Maybe you could help. You're good with animals, right? Everybody knows that. Well. There's a... there's _something_ in here."

Instantly, Korsak understood the situation. An animal in a restaurant was a health code violation that would get the place shut down. Angela worked for an hourly wage, not a salary. Her rent-free situation with Dr. Isles aside, a woman had needs. Something to wear, something to eat (though, for all Vince knew, maybe the place came with both bed and board), something to save up, something to help out her ne'er-do-well youngest son as he got his life back in order. Even if a shutdown was only temporary, she would lose valuable income for the duration.

Worse, what if Stanley thought it was Angela's fault, and fired her? That wouldn't do. Getting his morning coffee and conversation with Angela was getting to be the good part of just about any day, save for the highlight of an occasional arrest. "You want me to help you find it and get it out of here?" he offered, trying not to smile hopefully. God, he was a sap. "I've got some cruelty-free traps. You think it's something little like a mouse or a rat, or something bigger?"

Angela stuck a hand in her apron and pulled out a torn bag. "Something bigger. It got into the big walk-in fridge, which isn't hard. I mean, it's made so I can get into and out of it easy with my hands full." Korsak, obligingly, craned his neck to look in that direction. Like most industrial walk-ins, a suitably motivated child could open it up. "But it would probably have to use its weight to push it open, so that means a little bit bigger than a rat, unless it's an exchange student rat from New York City. We put a lock on the freezer for after hours, and Stanley's getting it changed to a pass-code for fire safety."

"I had a case once where the wife locked her husband in the walk-in freezer," mused Korsak. He took the bag and looked at the edges. Dr. Isles could tell him if it was sharp, meat eating teeth, like a raccoon, or the blunter ones of herbivorous animals. All he could tell was something had bitten open a bag of pancake mix. _Mystery number one, the case of the missing pancakes, is solved._ Korsak sniffed the bag. "Was this on the ground?"

Angela shook her head. "Nothing's on the ground." She wrung her hands, looking at the big man beseechingly. "I was thinking," she said slowly, "I could stay late and do 'inventory.' See if I spot anything." Just like Jane in her most sarcastic, Angela made air quotes.

There were a hundred reasons to tell Angela she was on her own, but Korsak took one look at her big, brown eyes and found himself asking, "When should I come by?"

* * *

Jane was perched on the counter, swinging her heels against the cabinets, when Maura re-entered the lab for the autopsy. "Jane, stop that," she chastised. While Jane did stop, Maura was certain it was in appreciation for her form, over obedience to Maura's noise preferences. She'd take what she could get. "When are Vince and Barry getting here?" asked Maura, slipping into the surgical gown she wore over her scrubs.

Sighing at the change in attire (and thus confirming Maura's suspicions that Jane was admiring her body, again, as she'd many times expressed a positive option to Maura in her scrubs), the detective recited, "Korsak's hunting down Occupy alibis. When he's done making goo-goo eyes at Ma." Jane rolled her eyes at this new information. "And Ma's being weird again."

"In what way?" asked Maura, then took a moment to press her toe into the recording button below her examination table before Jane could even speak. "Autopsy of John Doe number... " she glanced down at the tag and read off the numbers, then the date and time, "... Detective Jane Rizzoli attending." Her foot came off the button, and she stood back to put her hair into a what Jane had begun calling her Ponytail of Scientific Bad-Assery, then her hands into thin vinyl gloves. "Sorry for interrupting. Weird how?"

Jane rubbed at the back of her neck. "You know, just weird." She pulled her phone out to text Frost about the autopsy. "Like I think she has this idea that something's going on between us that we're not telling her." Maura glanced over her shoulder, surprised slightly. "Then again, maybe she was chasing me out so she could flirt with Korsak." The look on Jane's face seemed undecided if she was more concerned about being outed or her mother dating.

By now, Maura was bent over the body stretched out before her, naked as the day he was born. The clothes had been removed earlier, and as she perused the body, the medical examiner verbally ran through those earlier findings, stepping on the recording button when appropriate. "The suit was from the Brooks Brothers line of 2011. Nothing special, other than the lack of wear. Oh, but you'll be interested to know that it was tailored, but not to fit our victim. It's for a shorter man with a slightly wider waistline, narrower neck, and the length of the leg and inseam are for a man with shorter legs than this one. The left leg is shorter that the right." Jane started to get excited, but Maura shut that down right away. "Only three-quarters of an inch shorter, which is actually well within normal range. Very few people are completely symmetrical down the vertical axis, and most people have larger, wider, or longer right sides than left sides in most particulars; it goes along with handedness, usually. Hold your hands together like this," she struck a pose that anyone would associate with prayer, both palms flat against one another, "and you'll see which of your fingers are longer than their counterparts on the other side."

Jane tried it, frowning at the results. "I'm lopsided," she complained. However, setting annoyance to her own physical inadequacies aside, Jane texted all this information to Korsak. Just not the part about her hands being uneven.

"Yes, well, I happen to like your hands' unevenness," Maura replied with a wink, then bent back over the body.

As her phone beeped, Jane relayed the information. "Korsak says thanks, he'll call Brooks Brothers with the details. Anything else about the suit?" Her heels drummed against the cabinets again, with thinly veiled impatience.

Maura clucked her tongue, which stopped Jane right away. "The suit is off the line, not custom-made for anyone, other than the tailoring I've already mentioned, but it's at the very top of the ready-made echelon. Like a fairly well-to-do man's second-tier suit, the difference between what he'd wear on a normal office day versus a particularly important business meeting. Shirt is Egyptian cotton, unremarkable thread count which I've noted in that section of the report already, tie of slightly inferior silk, suit is a linsey-woolsey, all-season blend, softer than one might usually find, but not so fine as merino or cashmere. The socks were white cotton, athletic style; they didn't go with the suit."

Even Jane knew that, wrinkling her nose. "White socks with that suit. Frankie tried that with his prom tux. Ma had me and Tommy hold him down while she changed them." Jane laughed softly, "Socks were off the rack, right? Cheap stuff like I get?"

"Yes. I mean..." Oh dear. Maura chose her reply carefully. "They look very comfortable." Quickly she went back to the case at hand, but not before Jane made a noise behind her. "As I noted at the crime scene, the victim was dressed by someone else." There were a score of indicators, to Maura's expert eyes, but they all boiled down to the fact that they just didn't sit on the body like they would if someone had stood up to put them on, tucked in the shirt in ways that didn't irritate the skin of abdomen and thigh, adjusted the tie to be loose enough to breathe but tight enough to look right, and _zhuzhed_ the fabric to feel comfortable while wearing and walking about. The lack of movement-associated wrinkles was almost beside the point, but of course the report included that as well. Juries loved overkill. It wasn't enough to just know. One had to justify _how_ one knew. Her assistants had learned a great deal on the subject from the lecture she offered to those who hadn't already received it before.

Jane did not attempt to interrupt the good doctor on her educational spiel this time. Working for Maura for over five years, and dating her for just a year, had given her some skills in handling the verbal data-dumps Maura liked to throw at people. One was to take notes and pass them on to Korsak, who texted back, _Is she wikipedia-ing again?_ Jane smirked.

"Notice anything?" Maura asked rhetorically, still bent over, but smiling towards Jane atop the cabinets. The phone quickly went down and Jane shook her head, as if she'd been paying attention all along. "No, well, you wouldn't. I only know it because when my assistant went to wash the body, it proved unnecessary. He said the body had already been washed quite thoroughly - with soap and water, so no, it didn't happen in the rain or a river or anything of that kind. In addition to possible murder and body moving, you can add willful destruction of evidence to the list of felonies. It would also qualify, I believe, as obstruction of justice, but you'll have to ask an ADA about that to be certain." Even though she actually knew, the doctor hated when non-doctors attempted to make medical judgments, and therefore restricted herself from making legal ones out of respect for the lawyers' profession.

Maura went over the body externally with as much attention as the clothing had received in its time, noting pinkish tinge to skin as well as the presence of moles, birthmarks, scars (including very discreet ones where a man born with webbing of fingers and toes had had this genetic condition hidden to casual inspection). "But that's... Well, it's unusual to be born with webbing, or with a tail, or some other perfectly harmless, purely cosmetic abnormality, but not entirely unheard of, and one does normally perform a cosmetic surgery on an infant if one can, to avoid it being called cruel names. In other words, it might help us find relatives of the man, but it's unlikely to be otherwise significant."

"Maura, stop telling me what we _don't_ have," sighed Jane. Useful data disgorge was useful. This was just showing off. "You don't have to just waste time. Frost isn't coming. Something freaked him out about people re-dressing a dead guy, so he and Frankie are off on the alibis now."

Though she appeared a little distressed, Maura was not all that surprised. Frost was a sensitive man. His very distaste for death was what made him so passionate about catching those who hastened it. "All right, then," she agreed, and picked up a laryngoscope. "Let's just see what we can find before I have to cut." Two fingers pulled down the man's chin and opened his mouth; her other hand gently guided the scope inside and down his throat, followed by the tiny camera, so she could look inside. "Hm." When the scope and camera were securely in place, she backed away, reached for an instrument on her table, and sent the swab down the man's gullet. "There's water in his lungs, but that could come from illness, heart attack which would give us severe secondary pulmonary edema, or passive filling due to submersion - possibly from rain, submersion after death, being washed, coughing the wrong way while alive but not enough to cause death... I'm going to send this sample to trace for analysis." Once taken, the sample went into a test tube, which she sealed and labeled before visually diving back in. "Oh. Jane, you're in luck."

Jane perked up like a Doberman told to keep intruders out of a home, who'd suddenly heard one (or the opening of a can of the really good food). "What?"

Still, there was no immediate answer. Not until Maura had picked up a Q-tip, wet it with distilled water, and swabbed out a nostril. It came back blackish-grey, and she put it into another sample tube. "I've got potential cause of death."

Jane was floored. Maura reveled in the moment; it wasn't often she could make her lover speechless. At least, not in the office. "There may be another cause," she clarified smugly, "but unless I find a _very_ swift-acting poison or indicators of something else, I am _almost_ comfortable declaring death from smoke inhalation. Pink skin is a common indicator of carbon monoxide poisoning, so I'll have the lab test for that." She was already reaching for another sample swab for trace. "I'll just confirm smoke particle concentration with a little visit to Major Mass Spec."

At this, Jane lost her flabbergastedness and remembered she had a sense of humor as well. "Cute. You been watching more of those _NCIS_ reruns?"

Having the grace to look slightly abashed, Maura admitted, "Just the ones with a lot of Abby in them. She's... cool." Jane rocked her head from side to side, but could not argue the comment.

More external evidence came to light before Maura was willing to cut: finger calluses implying a desk job rather than manual labor. "You see this divot on the second digit?" Jane looked at the middle finger. "The second digit including the thumb," Maura clarified. "The pointer finger. That indicates heavy use of a pen or pencil, so he liked to write by hand, or was obligated to do so, more than using a keyboard. He's missing indicators that I'd take to mean he was an artist, however. There are no... "

What followed was a long list, chiefly offered in three-dollar-and-up words, finally interrupted by, "Later that same day, Sherlock Holmes! Jesus." Maura huffed, pursed her lips, and took dental impressions.

"If we're very lucky, he'll have had recent dental work, or at least an examination. Doubtful, however. The suit was more upscale than John Doe. Note the untended cuticles, unclipped nails, these sores indicating that either basic hygiene was purposefully neglected, or that he simply lacked access to appropriate facilities. He also had a rash." She took yet another sample, this one to send to the serology lab. "We'll see if it was from irritation or infection.

"Finally," she drew Jane's attention back to the body, "look at how thin he was. Presence of hair follicles, but not hair, here, here, and here, indicates that he probably had trouble getting enough protein to assign any to hair, skin, and nail growth - despite the length of his nails, which probably took quite a long time to grow, considering the bumpiness of the nail bed, which indicates malnutrition."

"So, if he hadn't been washed," Jane concluded, "he'd have reeked like Rondo?"

Maura nodded. "It took getting murdered to give this poor man what should have been simple dignity and comfort, from a bath."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews, or we attack you with _eau de Rondo_. Though, to be honest, we'll be doing that anyway.


	3. You Can't Evict An Idea

"Frost, you got that list of recent fires?" asked Jane as she entered the AV room.

Her partner was surrounded by screens boasting an array of crime scene photos, reports, blow-ups of smaller objects, maps of buildings' wiring, and other minutiae associated with criminally-instigated fires. "All arsons, solved and unsolved, in the last 60 days."

"Drop it to seven days. Body's been dead maybe three at most," Jane directed. Crossing her arms, she lent against the desk. "Particulars are house fire, between 80 and 100 years old, no furniture."

Impressed, Korsak took up position opposite Frost, "She figured out all that just from the body?"

"Just the lungs." Privately, Jane was hella impressed by her girlfriend's ability. Publically she put on an annoyed face that was only partly an act. Maura was equal parts brilliantly skilled and brilliantly frustrating. "Maura's still looking for trace from the perps. They washed the body before re-dressing it."

Korsak grunted. "That makes our part trickier. But we've done more with less." Frost smiled, busily entering the data. "I ran down the suit. Doc was right, it's a Brooks Brothers, end of year clearance from this year. They sell 'em all over, though, even the outlet mall. Bet that ticks off the Doc, selling them fancy clothes at a strip mall."

Jane knew it did and grinned at Korsak. "You get the list of names of who bought 'em?"

"Whaddaya think I am? Some rookie? Of course I did." Korsak wasn't really offended, Jane could tell by his grin. With a yawn, the sergeant went on, "Couple companies down in the financial district buy them in bulk, though. In case an exec needs an emergency suit."

The cuffs, Maura had noted, were hemmed for a shorter man. "But they get fitted, right? So if we sent in the measurements..."

Korsak shook his head. "They keep them on computer, but they want a warrant for the records." All three detectives sighed. It would be so much easier if people just agreed to help. Then again, not every police force did the right thing with their data. "I filed it before I came up. We just want a list of the names, so I got the doc to give me specifics."

Personally, Jane preferred a more vague warrant that gave her a lot of leeway in a search. If your warrant said you could search the kitchen, then you can only search a kitchen. If it said house, though, then you could search the house and not the garage. Jane did not begrudge these restrictions - much - as they protected the innocent as well as the officers.

"How many guys have uneven legs anyway?" wondered Frost, as the computer sorted the database.

"Most," Jane replied, absently. "Pretty much everyone's got one leg longer than the other. Same with different sized feet." When her partners eyed her, Jane sighed. _I am hanging out with Maura too much. No, not too much._ "His feet must've been a lot bigger than whoever dressed him," she continued, thoughtfully, chasing the thought train to it's station.

"How'd'ya figure?" wondered Korsak.

"If the feet were smaller, they could put on oversized shoes. But cramming a dead guy's too big feet into tiny shoes? Nuh uh."

"Hey, they already horsed a stiff into clothes," Frost grumbled. "And washed him. That's already pretty gross." Thankfully, Frost's weak gag reflex was saved when the computer beeped and over two dozen dots lit the monitor.

Jane and Korsak stared. "You run that right, junior?" asked Korsak, counting on his fingers. "That's a lot of houses."

"You want a go at it, Pops?" Frost cracked, gesturing at his keyboard. "I ran all the calls for house fires, cooking fires, fireplace fires, arson... There's even a sex fire and a cat fire."

Stifling a laugh at the mental image of a sex fire, Jane amended the parameters, "No cooking fires. Maura says the fire didn't have any grease or food traces." Though how you could tell just from the guy's lungs, Jane had no idea. "How'd the sex fire not include any furniture?"

"Teenagers in the woodshed with a space heater," smirked Frost.

"Roomier than the back of the car," Korsak opined. The computer dinged again, and now there were only five houses. "Well, that's not so bad," muttered Korsak.

"I'll get my coat," sighed Frost, getting up.

"What? Hell no, Frost. This is the perfect job for a young guy, trying to earn his detective stripes." Jane grinned, evilly. Korsak, following right along with her, shared the same look. A heartbeat later, Frost's expression turned enlightened.

* * *

It was the conversation with Maura in the morgue that had given Jane the idea. "It's just like the guy to be there all summer and vanish as soon as it gets cold," she muttered, driving through Rondo's regular hood. Frankie was hoofing it to each potential crime scene, leaving Jane and Frost free to chase down a lead.

"He's homeless," Frost pointed out, scanning the streets.

"Never stopped him before."

There was no reply to that. For a CI, Rondo was on the tame side of things. Jane and Korsak had, over the years, cultivated their own network of skells, short for skeletons, that would turn over for a little green. But Rondo was a class in and of himself. When she didn't need him around, Jane still kept tabs on the weirdo, just to make sure he was alright. Her last update on his whereabouts was only a week old, and since the weather hadn't changed much since then, odds were he was still around.

Admittedly, Jane was a little distracted. She and Maura were coming up on a year. Depending on how you counted, it was a year from when they'd first said anything about dating. Just over a year from the date, and less from the first time they'd - Jane cut off that train of thought at the station. _You are not going to think about sex with your girlfriend while you're in the car with your partner, looking for a crazy homeless guy who calls you Vanilla, Rizzoli!_

"Yo, Vanilla!"

It was like the wrong person developed telepathy. Jane pulled over and rolled down Frost's window. "Hey, Rondo. You busy?"

"I'm never too busy for you," he grinned. No, leered. "Lookin' _good_ , Vanilla."

Jane rolled her eyes, amused. "Want to hop in? I need some info."

"You need help from the Rondo-nator? Baby, I can help you in ways you never _dreeeeamed_ of." Instead of getting in, Rondo kept his position leaning on Frost's door. Well, it was good practice for Barry's gag reflex. "Let the _real_ man help you out, baby."

"Rondo-nator? That's a new one." If it wasn't so funny, Jane might have been offended. "I got a dead homeless guy, died in a house fire. You know anything?"

"Hey, I don't squat in houses, Vanilla. I'm cool, keep off the streets and in the shelters. Get me some food and a bed. Unless you got a better offer, know what I mean?"

Frost was, manfully, trying not to laugh out loud. Jane would have kicked him if she could. "How about your friends, Rondo? Any of them stay in houses to keep dry?"

At least Rondo took the question seriously, and replied with the proper gravitas. "You only asking about the _home_ -icides, right? Not gonna tap a man on a little B&E to keep warm."

It was time to deal. "You know I don't care about that, Rondo."

Still, Rondo looked askance at Frost. "What about Chocolate Chip, here?"

Now it was Jane's turn not to guffaw. Frost looked offended. He protested to his good faith as Jane bit her lip. Finally she patted Frost's knee. "He's fine, Rondo. I'll keep him in line." She and Rondo shared a look, his clearly questioning Frost's reliability, hers assuring just that.

"A'ight," Rondo said, grudgingly. "There's a group of guys, like to crash in those foreclosed houses. Places that ain't selling. It's dry, warmer than a tent, and easier to get in than a shelter, you gotta camp out in line for eight hours. They look for the places without any ADT stuff."

They couldn't really fault that. The entire system was over taxed, literally and figuratively. "How do they check?" asked Jane.

"Chuck a rock in the window, see if anyone shows. Next day, bingo, baby."

Not a bad plan, they agreed. "This group of guys. They regulars?" asked Frost, his North Carolinian accent, acquired before the elementary school years were over along with his time there, slipping into his speech.

Rondo shook his head, "Naw. Some." Contradictory much? Jane mused that Maura could use lessons from Rondo about how to lie and contemplated introducing them. Then she thought better of the concept. "I didn't hear of any of 'em dying in a fire. Which house?"

"Ah, that's the catch, Rondo. We got a body and no house."

Rondo whistled. "Ain't that a pretty mess, Vanilla. And you come to the _Ronnnnndo_ -" Already his hands were on his chest, illustrating pride as if preening luxurious plumage.

"Don't," warned Jane.

His hands went up. "You need _me_ to help? It's my birthday!"

 _If this doesn't pan out, I am never going to hear the end of it from Frost,_ realized Jane. It was bad enough that Frost knew Rondo's nickname for her. "You said you could find me anything, Rondo. So how about a house the guys were squatting in that caught on fire."

Whistling through his teeth, Rondo asked, sarcastically, "Bet you wanna talk to all the guys too."

"That'd be nice, yeah," smiled Jane. "Give him the phone, Barry." Very carefully, making sure their skin did not touch, Frost handed over an envelope. "Burner phone and some cash. This pans out, you get regular rates, Rondo. Deal?"

Rondo checked the contents first before sticking his hand in, right past Barry's nose, to hold his palm out for Jane. Without a moment's hesitation, she shook it. After all, Maura had that sanitizing crap shoved in the glovebox. "Deal, Vanilla. And see if you can unwind your sidekick here." With that, Rondo sauntered back off into the afternoon.

"Sidekick?" Frost echoed as Rondo strutted away, purposefully favoring one foot to give himself a hitch in his git-along that he thought made him look cool. "I'm _not,"_ he emphasized, staring right at Jane, "a sidekick. I'm a junior member of a mostly-equal partnership."

"Yeah," Jane replied, almost as if she believed it, too. "Yeah, you are."

"I am."

"I said you were."

"Seriously, Rizzoli."

"Hey, I'm agreeing over here." Still, her amusement was palpable as she drove back to the station, chuckling the whole way.

* * *

The best thing to be said about a burnt out husk of a house in November was that it didn't really smell. Much. "It's too bad," mused Korsak, looking up through what used to be a ceiling. "This woulda been a nice slice in the city."

"If you got a cool mill and change," agreed the fireman.

Standing in the soggy remains of a century old home, Jane saw little hope in rebuilding. She shook her head at the fireman and carefully picked her way through the debris. "Okay, walk me through the fire." Maura was due any minute, but there was no point in not asking for a little bit of details. Especially if it could be done before Rondo showed up. Maybe she'd be lucky and Maura and Rondo would miss each other.

The fireman had his rookie actually do the walk through. "Fire started here, in the breakfast nook. The house was winterized, and the heat's off, so the wood had a chance to really dry out. Plus this place is old, so that stuff burns up real nice, like a bonfire. The call came from the house across the street. By the time we got here, it was a lost cause. Just turned the water on and made sure it didn't set fire to the neighbors."

While Jane felt the walk through was crap, she smiled tightly at the fireman rookie and took a look at the proclaimed start of the fire. "Why no call to have a detective look it over?"

"Seemed pretty straight forward. Officer on the scene agreed, homeless guys squatting, cheap booze, cigs, fire." The rookie shrugged. "The rest is up to insurance and the owner. Which... well I thought that's why you were here."

"Actually, I can place a dead body in this building." Jane's eyes, actually everyone's eyes, swerved from wherever they were, honing in on the medical examiner who had spoken. Everyone else, even the CSU techs who'd followed Maura in, was wearing black boots or department issued hip-waders.

And then there was Maura, in tight 'cleaning' jeans, clingy olive green top, a snug brown leather jacket with three-quarter sleeves (somewhere between 'classy and modern' and 'sci fi scruffy hero' and Jane suddenly envied the hell out of whoever had fit it to her exact shape), and those boots. Those garish, traffic cone orange boots, with the actual Wellington logo on them, covering up her lower legs to protect them from filth. Or, perhaps, from being shot during deer season. It was fortunate that everyone was staring at the boots, and perhaps that was why she'd worn them. To those who both knew how to read her and could ignore the boots, meaning pretty much just Jane, Maura appeared slightly off balance, though doing a heroic job covering it up.

Korsak coughed delicately, "Nice to see you, Doc."

Smiling at Vince, Maura, tight pants and all, squatted by Jane. "Was someone sleeping here?"

"That I do not know. Yet," admitted Jane. When the firemen looked surprised, she explained, "I'm collecting some of the squatters." Maura, busily taking samples of the fire, glanced up with an interested expression. "Yes, you can meet Rondo." There was no way to avoid the inevitable.

Maura directed the techs to take photographs. "Not every fire, or every... arson," she hesitated over the word, "falls under the purview of the police, Jane," she mentioned. Jane arched her eyebrows over the uncharacteristic hesitation. "Fires in and outside the Boston municipality fall under the state Fire Marshall, and only every fire within the city limits are investigated. Any fire outside Boston is at their discretion -"

Even the firemen were looking at Maura with weary tolerance. It was Jane to the rescue! "Yeah, I know," she cut in. "And if the fire department doesn't find a fire suspicious, they don't call us. Honestly, guys, I'm not sure we care about the fire as much as the body. If a homeless guy died in the fire, I want to know how he got out, and how he ended up in Dewy Park."

The senior fireman looked surprised, "This is your Occupy Dead Guy?"

Jane winced. The last thing the world needed was to have a murder related to the Occupy movement. "It was a body dump," she said, with more certainty than she felt. Maura shot her a scowl, not pleased about the announcement, but simply made a soft snort in reply. _Thank you for that vote of confidence, sweetie,_ thought Jane to herself.

A voice from outside startled everyone. "Hey, baby! The Rondo is here!" The temptation to face-palm was great, but Jane sighed and sent Frost to go fetch Rondo and whomever he'd brought along. "Hey-hey, it's Chocolate Chip!" Rondo said, way too cheerfully from the outside.

Korsak looked like he was swallowing his tongue trying not to laugh. Maura, distracted momentarily from both the body and whatever uneasiness she was doing her best to conceal, glanced towards the voice and watched for the man, or rather, men, being brought inside. Just barely they heard Frost explain to the patrolman that it was okay, before he led in Rondo and four other people. They were, clearly, homeless. From the outset, they were dressed shabbily, in too many layers, and while they clearly took efforts to be clean, there was, as Jane put it, a funk like Rondo had.

Jane felt a pang of guilt for these people. They weren't druggies, or criminals of any nature. They were just people who, down on their luck, had been punted to the fringe of society. _Well done, democracy,_ she thought angrily. _This shouldn't happen when CEOs are making the GDP of a small nation._ But the system was overworked, and there wasn't enough money there to help anyone. "Rondo, who're your friends?" she asked, masking her anger for their situation with the actual friendliness with which she regarded, and treated, Rondo.

Of course, then he had to speak. "Hey, Vanilla! This your pimp?" asked Rondo, gesturing at Korsak.

 _Never. Going. To. Hear. The. End. Of. This._ Jane glanced at Korsak, who had a shit-eating grin on his face. "That's Sgt. Korsak, these two are Firemen Listman and Dominguez. You know Detective Frost." Jane waved a hand at Maura at the CSUs, "And this -"

"This is someone you _gotta_ be introducing me to, Vanilla. Hellooooo, Caramel Latte! Looks like somebody ordered extra sugar and cream! Mmm, _mmm!"_

Jane wasn't sure which was more disturbing, the fact that Rondo's nicknames revolved around food, or that he was actually taking his hat off to smooth his hair back and flirt with Maura. And Maura was not just looking curious, but actually smiling back at him. Of course she was. The woman was made of politeness. Also: Caramel Latte? Well, that was better than calling her a blonde. "That would be _Doctor_ Isles, our chief medical examiner."

"Baby, you can examine the _Rondo_ any time!" The man loved the sound of his own name almost as much as nicknaming everyone after food.

Apologetically, and to the amusement of most in the vicinity, Maura replied, "Actually, I can't. A medical examiner's patients are all dead. I just dissect them to find out how they came to be that way."

Korsak had to actually turn his back on the scene to not guffaw. Frost smirked. Even the firemen and the other homeless people laughed. Jane just grinned, delighted to see the gobsmacked expression on Rondo's face. Technically, okay, the medical examiner was qualified as a practicing physician, but Maura tended not to point that out, and thus avoid uncomfortable 'You're a doctor, look at this...' conversations.

The strange man lent towards Jane, "Vanilla, she for real?"

"Mmhm, yeah," confirmed Jane. Rondo voiced a surprised 'huh' but let it go. "You want to introduce me to your friends here, Rondo?"

That perked him right back up. "You know I pull through for you, Vanilla. This here's Jericho, Hoss, Big Ted and Louis."

Naturally Big Ted was shorter than Maura.

Jane held her hand out to each one in turn, even taking her glove off first. "Hi, thank you for coming by." They took her hand without hesitation. "Did Rondo explain what I'm looking for?" There were cautious nods. "Tell me about the fire, first."

The four men looked at each other and Hoss stepped forward. "It was pretty late, about one or two in the morning. Big Ted and I were over there." He pointed by the kitchen. "The water's not running, but the tile was too cold, so we stashed our stuff there and were making a bed by the wall. Lou and Jer were on the other side of the doorway. All of a sudden, I smelled smoke."

Nodding, Jane gestured for Frost to stand by the fire's origin. "Okay, so the fire's there. Did you see it?"

Hoss frowned and then dropped to a squat. "Nah, nah, I didn't see it at all. But you _know_ that smell, right? You know?" Everyone nodded, even if they had no idea. Except Maura, who looked like she knew exactly what Hoss was talking about. "Big Ted grabs our bags and we shout, heading out the side door. We all piled out and went across the street, where this house had the lights on. Took forever and a day, banging on the door, but the old man finally came to the door to call the fire department. Guess everyone thought someone else was calling or something."

Ted, Big Ted, spoke up. "While we were waiting, I remember seeing blue flames." His voice was big, deep, and booming. Now the name made sense.

Listman nodded, "Sure, that's what happens when you guys leave booze around. Burns blue." He managed to be incredible accusatory, and Jane scowled.

"Hey, man!" snapped Jericho. "We didn't smoke, we didn't drink! Sure, we broke in, but we didn't trash the place." Lou grabbed his arm to keep him still. "Why the hell does everyone think we're trash? We're not!"

Angrily, Listman shouted back. "Do you know how many accidental fires you people start with your crap?"

"Us people!" screamed Jer.

"Does anyone smoke Dunhill?"

Maura's clear voice penetrated everyone's head, and the argument was frozen with a chorus of "What?"

With tweezers, Maura held up the remains of a cigarette between the two tips of a tweezer. "Dunhill. One of the more expensive brands, intentionally. They raise their prices above market norm, even for imported cigarettes, in order to publicly imply their superior quality and insinuate that they offer a more refined product. Perhaps ironically, they were favored by less savory characters like Hunter S. Thompson and John Lennon, neither of whom lived up to Dunhill's self-perceived persona of high quality." She flashed a smile at the gathered people, pleased at having stopped the fight. "I find it highly unlikely, though possible, that someone without a job would spend money on this sort of luxury item when less expensive cigarettes could suffice. So again, does anyone smoke Dunhill?" Maura shifted her gaze to the four homeless men directly. "Specifically do you know if anyone in your cadre happens to smoke them?"

Slowly, Jer's arm fell to the side. "Uh... No. None of us smoke. Or drink," he added with a sneer. "We don't let folks in who do. They tend to get into fights and cause trouble."

"DNA?" asked Jane, hopefully.

Maura pursed her lips and bagged the cigarette, "We probably won't get any DNA off this, after the fire, but I'll try. Of course we don't have anyone to compare it to."

Jane contemplated the idea of asking the men for buccal swabs to rule them out, but decided against it. "Where'd you find your instigator?"

Listman huffed. "Bottle of Colt 40, sitting right where I marked. I'm having it sent to your lab." At least he was learning. Listman turned away and pulled his phone out to do what he said, leaving a perplexed Dominguez to deal with the interlopers.

"Was anyone missing after the fire?" asked Jane, picking her way to the far side of the room and looking at doors.

Rondo snorted. "Ain't like folks take roll call, Vanilla." This was confirmed by the other men. No one was noticed missing.

Still, Jane pressed on. "Who was sleeping here?" she asked, gesturing to the fireplace, where the remains of someone's bag had been left. In that manner, she went around the room until they reached a squat by the back door. Finally Jane had found a spot that everyone remembered had belonged to someone, but not who that someone was. She had not come across this position at random, and Jane grimly pointed at the door. "Was that locked?"

The firemen checked their notes. "Yeah, we came in through it." A moment of searching found the door itself, hacked by booted firemen and their axes. The chain was still attached to the door, though it had been ripped out of the frame. Jane knew from personal experience it took her two kicks to get through a door of that size, and most of that power came not from raw strength but adrenaline. Even when bursting into the cellar to find Hoyt that first time, the screams of a woman ringing in her ears, she'd needed two solid, adrenaline-fueled kicks.

With effort, Jane shook off that memory. Dark places.

If someone had been sleeping here, they may not have been able to get out the door. Jane mimed reaching for a locked door, in a fire. _If no one knew anyone was sleeping here_ , she thought, _maybe he didn't hear anyone._ That was a thought. "Korsak! Go stand where Hoss was sleeping and yell fire, will you?"

Her partner didn't even question the request. "Fire! Fire!"

Hoss corrected him, "No man, it was like this. _Fire! Fire!_ "

Either way, Jane could just make out noise. The words were understandable, but the acoustics didn't make it sound quite as important. _If I was used to sleeping where it was noisy, would I pay attention?_ Fire was, universally, a word that got attention, and if you were used to being evicted, you probably listened well in your sleep. Then again, this might have been the first night in a long time that the guy had a secure place to crash. Maybe he was finally getting a good night's rest. No one knew him, so he was possibly new. _No assumptions, Rizzoli,_ she chastised herself and stared at the back door. Hundred year old house. Milk door. Bingo!

"What do you got, Jane?" asked Korsak quietly.

"Korsak, did your house have one of those, growing up?" she asked, pointing to the small door, nearly dog sized, to the left of the back door. Many of Boston's older homes had these openings, and modern residents often thought of them as dog doors. However, they were not cut-outs in the main door or back door of the home, which opened onto a kitchen on one side and the porch on the other. These were side doors, positioned _beside_ porches but not over them. A dog would have avoided exiting through one of these, and wouldn't have been able to get in one, either. A milkman, however, could walk right up to the house and push several bottles of milk, pounds of butter, and dozens of eggs through a door like this, without even bending over, then walked away to continue his rounds.

"Sure. My best friend climbed out one on a dare, missed the porch and broke his arm." Korsak laughed at the childhood memory before catching Jane's train of though. "You don't think our guy..." He went out the back door to look at the porch and the ground below the milk door.

Sizing up the door and her own hips, Jane frowned. "Hey! Maura, come here!"

"Yes?" Maura asked, standing again and walking over, orange Wellingtons staging a silent war with her purple crime scene gloves. They clashed, something Jane would have to tease Maura about later and collect a point.

Jane pointed at the milk door. "Could you get through that?"

"Yes," came the immediate reply, followed by a pained expression on the medical examiner's face. "Do I have to show you? It's very dirty, and this jacket..." Already her head was shaking; she wouldn't do it if it was not required absolutely.

"Nah," Jane reassured her immediately. "You think I could?"

Her own shoulders hunched as Maura remarked, "Your shoulders are approximately two centimeters wider than mine. Yes, but your hair would become filthy." Still an encouraging answer, from where Jane stood.

Finally, she got to the real point of the questions. "Could our vic?"

This time, Maura considered the question more carefully, head tilted, frowning in concentration (which was not assisted by the _sotto voce_ commentary of Rondo to his fellow houseless companions, mostly concerning the fineness of her ass, or some such, but conspicuously missing any supposed action to be performed thereon). "He was fairly thin at the shoulder for a man. I believe he could," she finally replied, "but it would be tight." She knelt for a better look at the milk door frame. "If he had on bulky clothing, it might have hung onto a rough patch, or been scraped. Ooh - like this."

She reached into a pocket for tweezers, plucked a few stray threads, and held them up for Jane's appreciation before depositing them into an evidence envelope. Once it was labelled and put away, the first of many items that would be collected from the site, she lifted her voice to catch the attention of the lead CSU. "Be on the lookout for any scraped, torn, or ripped clothing. Recent rips, especially." The order was passed along among them all. Again, she glanced about, rubbing her gloved hands together as if to warm them.

Jane rubbed her chin. The suit they'd found on the vic was near pristine. Not that they needed more evidence that he was moved. "Okay. Night before, we have a fire. _Presumably_ our vic goes out the back, when everyone else went out the front. Fire's in the mudroom, so he can't get past. Goes through the milk door and..." Jane stepped over the detritus that was once a back door and pointed to ground on one side of the back steps. "... falls here." She glanced back at Maura and pointed again. "Yes, no?"

"I wasn't here," Maura reminded Jane pointedly, still inside but, thanks to the burning away of part of the wall, able to converse as though right next to the others, "so I can't say whether that's what happened. It's plausible, however." _Plausible,_ she'd learned, was one of the words she could use that would not tell anyone anything of value, but would get them to stop demanding answers based on speculation. "That would explain everything that we've seen thus far." _Thus far_ was another phrase that left the doors of further thought and investigation wide open. It would not do to let people stop searching for more information by telling them something that they'd take as final.

Jane did not roll her eyes at Maura. This time. "I don't even need the CSI super eye for this one," Korsak pointed out from below. "Check it out, he crushed the rhododendron."

"Azalea," Maura corrected automatically. "Though they're in the same genus, this is not a _Rhododendron rhododendron._ It's a _Rhododendron pentanthera,_ commonly known as the azalea." Pleased at being helpful, enough to distract her from whatever had been making her look chilled and nervous, she glanced around, expecting (against all prior history) to find at least one smile returned to her. When none was forthcoming, she ventured, "No? Well... Oh, I see. You were speaking in the sense of the genus in the first place, not of the species. In that case, absolutely correct. Forgive my assumption." So much for that little distraction; back to feeling, and thus looking, uneasy. It was very hard for her to dissemble with her open, expressive face.

The detectives did not rise to this bait (though Jane muttered 'sarcasm' at Korsak, for a grin from the big man) and instead looked at the crushed plant. "He crawls out," muttered Jane, pointing to the broken branches and other dead plant bits. "And then... Are those drag marks?"

Two furrows in the sodden grass led to the fence along the alley. Though still frustrated at the unaccepted correction from before, Maura offered more assistance, stepping outside at last with a little sigh of relief at having found a reason to do so. "Yes." No qualifiers, no lecture, no alternative explanation. Given the reactions of everyone, her "What?" would have been out of place had it _not_ been uttered. "They are."

Jane jiggled the fence door, and it popped open. "Great security. Who lives here?" she asked, gesturing with her chin to the next house over.

"Owners are on vacation," Frost supplied. "No ADT."

On the alley side of the fence was a thin strip of dirt and Jane wondered exactly how smart Maura was. _What the hell,_ she thought, looking at the tire tracks left in the alley. "Hey. Maura, does that look like a truck or a car?"

Quite obligingly, Maura walked over and looked. "It appears to be roughly 80 inches, which puts it in the realm of a truck or large SUV." A moment later and the doctor had out a measuring tape, confirming the distance at 79" or so, depending on the weight of the truck and the load. "A truck would be more likely, as even the larger SUVs are an inch thinner. Of course, if the truck had double wheels in the rear it would be even wider, but we'd see the second set of tracks here, which we do not. As a point of interest," she added, smiling more now that they were outside in the fresher air, "seventy-nine inches is also the standard length of a bed in Latin America and continental Europe. American, Australian, and Canadian king sided beds tend to be one inch longer, and other sizes are four inches shorter."

Now Jane rolled her eyes. "Frost, check if any of the residents on this block have trucks. And let's get some tire impressions while we're at it."

"You thinking the death's accidental and someone tried to save the guy," asked Korsak, bringing over a beleaguered CSU tech. "Felony homicide if it's the arsonist."

"Anyone else would call 911 if they saw a guy fall out of a burning building," Jane pointed out. "But if you set fire to a place and a guy stumbles out, you sure as hell don't want him fingering the address."

Korsak grunted in agreement, "Then it's time to see why _this_ house was on fire."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews and Rondo goes home. Or stays. Whichever.
> 
> Also credit to @izzie579 for Korsak's nickname.


	4. Liar's Game

Ditching his partners had been harder than Vince had anticipated. Rizzoli had the idea they should go and check up on the protesters, but luckily Frost had pointed out they needed more info on the truck; and the autopsy, while complete, was waiting on results from the various doohickeys that told them smart stuff. Since Maura was going home for the night, Vince offered to finish up the report on the arson and the others could go home early.

Jane had given him an odd look, but after a round of texts on her phone, said she was going home to cook dinner. _Janie's got a guy, I knew it,_ thought Vince. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. No, he knew how he felt about that. Vince didn't like Jane not telling him stuff. Then again, he was pretty sure she hadn't told Frost either. Maybe Maura knew. He'd have to go talk to Maura later.

Right now, he locked his gun away and went down to the cafe. "Angela?" he asked carefully, pitching his voice so it wouldn't be too loud in the empty precinct.

The room was dark, with only the hall lights illuminating. Just as Vince was starting to think he should have brought his gun, Angela popped up from behind the counter, armed with a flashlight and a griddle sized spatula. And a colander on her head. "Over here!"

It wasn't supposed to be cute, but Vince found himself grinning. "What are you wearing?" he laughed, stepping around the counter.

"Armor," Angela said, defensively. "Where's your gun?"

"You know how much paperwork I gotta sign if my gun goes off!" Not to mention he didn't want to accidentally shoot Angela. Jane might be okay with him dating her mother, if he was lucky enough for that. She would _never_ be okay with him shooting her mother.

Snorting, Angela hunkered down in her little bunker. "You sound like Janie." But she looked amused, which was heartening. "Come on, get in."

That was an awfully small space. Vince swallowed. He didn't actually like small spaces much, but it was a little more bearable to be wedged into one with a pretty lady. _You did offer, Korsak,_ he reminded himself, and went to sit by Angela. "Give me the flashlight," he requested.

"What? Why?" Angela scowled at Vince. "You put a pot on and get down."

"I'm a cop. We're trained in how to hit the target with flashlights." This surprised Angela, but she handed the flashlight over, along with a pot for his head (oh lord) and another spatula. She muttered under her breath about wasted tax dollars, and when Vince didn't put the pot on his head, she did it for him.

For a brief moment, their eyes met. Vince was mildly pleased to see that Angela blushed first and looked away. "Thank you for doin' this, Vince. I couldn't ask anyone else."

Though it was harder to see behind his beard and five o'clock shadow, Vince blushed a little bit, too. "'Course I would," he said, taking a deep breath to speak but not using it all, and sucking in his gut slightly. He spared a moment to thank the good Lord above for the efficacy of the improved diet he'd been inspired lately to go on, and the gut-busting exercises he'd been doing in the gym. He didn't mind being called a teddy bear once in a while by the kids who came touring the precinct on career day, but he didn't want to actually look like one anymore.

Nor, he added with a tinge of self-righteousness, did he want to be huffing and puffing like a sad sack just from crouching low like a guerrilla fighter in a diner kitchen. "'Course I'd help, if you need me. Okay, now, where did you hear the noises?"

Angela cleared her throat and pointed to the storage pantry, of which they had a clear view from this vantage point. "I didn't hear any noises at first. I mean, it's noisy here all day. But early in the morning, or late in the night, I'd hear scrabbling. So I put out mouse traps, the humane ones you told me about, but they didn't catch anything." She sighed and shifted into a more comfortable seat. "Then the bags started getting chewed. First it was if we left any meat out, it'd vanish. Then some of the dry goods got opened."

It was strange to be listening to something like this without his notebook and a pencil. "That doesn't sound like it'd sit well with Stanley." Vince glanced at Angela who was trying not to smile at his comment. That was good! "Okay, so what else did you do?"

"Moved everything to bins instead of bags, for starters. They were some claw marks on the plastic."

They collected one of the bins and Vince ran a finger along it. "I'm not as smart as Maura," he apologized. To his delight, Angela asked who else was as smart as Maura. They grinned at each other. "I'm just saying, she could look at this and give you the genus and species and all the particulars. All I can say is, yup, looks like an animal."

* * *

Domestic Jane was an adorable thing to witness. Dressed in an apron and comfortable 'slouchy' clothes, she maneuvered around the kitchen of her apartment with the same ease and grace as her mother. People always acted like she couldn't cook, but really it was that Jane didn't take the time to cook. She rarely took the time for herself to do anything that smacked of self-pampering. But that was before Maura. After she and Maura had become friends, Jane found herself taking a little more me-time, a little more care in her personal life. While she couldn't find it within herself to go out and date, she had agreed to Maura's general ideas of betterment, going so far as an attempt at speed dating that ended with her and Maura enjoying a happier meal than any of the men might have made.

And then there was that one day when Maura told Jane she was pan-sexual. And Jane started rethinking every conversation they'd ever had, in every possible permutation. At first, though, she decided it didn't matter. Maura was her best friend, the sort of person you always wanted to meet so you could hang out with them forever. Your BFF. And it didn't matter if there was a chance Maura wanted to get in Jane's pants, you don't blow off your best friend for something that silly and trivial.

Besides, Maura's self-outing was the catalyst for Jane's self-analysis that lead to her cooking a fabulous Italian meal for her beautiful girlfriend. _And none of this would have happened without me having a chip on my shoulder and stealing records off Korsak's desk._ "Hope you're hungry," she announced to Maura, as the honey-blonde (brown? golden? _Damn it, I'm going to need to stop defining her hair color!_ ) came in.

Maura, for her part, was far less energetic and perky. Thus the majesty of home cooked _ossobuco in bianco,_ without the 'New World' addition of tomatoes, and with Nonna Rizzoli's secret ingredients, was wasted. Here was Jane Rizzoli, google-mouthing the master of Wikipedia with her cooking prowess, and it was, mostly, entirely ignored by her girlfriend. "And you are not listening to a word I'm saying, are you, Maur?"

"Mmhm," Maura hummed back, not the sound of contentment, but of distraction. She was doing her share of the work, making the _risotto alla Milanese_ according to Jane's other grandmother's recipe, which some kind person had translated into English, but as it chiefly involved stirring and adding cups of liquid one at a time, until the previous one had cooked entirely away, it occupied a very small percentage of her active brain. "Yes," she eventually added, "modern recipes add tomatoes. The real recipe doesn't because it's from before European contact with the New World flora. Smells good."

A flatter, less-engaged voice Maura scarcely possessed than this one, unless one counted the one time she'd been laid low by the influenza last winter.

"O... kay," Jane responded skeptically, herself fairly distracted now that she'd noticed Maura's demeanor. "What's up?"

"Your butter is burning," Maura replied flatly, inhaled as if to say more, and then her face crumpled in her adorably unattractive cry-face, immediately becoming blotchy pink, and her nose stuffing up with mucus. "I'm sorry," she apologized weakly, and it only got worse from there.

Torn between butter (and food) rescue and Maura, Jane made the executive decision to move the pan off the heat and to a safer location. She was going to have to start that over anyway. Next the veal was attended, and finally she moved the barely started risotto to a lower heat and dragged over a stool. "You sit, sweetie, until you can stop sounding like Ma when she's upset, or until I don't screw up dinner." This was punctuated with a soft kiss to the forehead and a gentle steering of Maura to said stool.

Without argument, Maura sat and continued to cry. _This is one romantic dinner down the disposal,_ thought Jane. _Maybe she doesn't like veal?_ Quickly following that train of thought, Jane pointed out, "I got it the meat from the cruelty free farm you said you liked. Cost an arm and a leg, but I figured you're always making these Suzy Homemaker dinners for me, I oughta make you something." Jane bit her lip, hoping she'd picked the right topic. Yes? No?

No. Maura was still crying, and this time waving one hand. Apparently Maura was mastering the 'Rizzoli sign language,' as Jane picked this one up. "Smell? Oh! The butter." Windows were opened and Jane quickly rinsed out the pan. "Butter? Are you -" She stopped. The rules, when dating men, were simple: Men were not permitted to diagnose... Were women? In a quiet voice, Jane asked, "Are you PMSing?"

"Ahhhh," Maura tried explaining, but her lips would only stretch into crying, not shape consonants to provide definition and distinction to sounds. "Nnnnaaaaaaah!" She did manage to look offended, though. Apparently women were _not_ permitted to diagnose PMS on anyone but themselves.

"Sorry," Jane winced, and cast about for another tactic. "Um. Okay, I'm gonna just finish the cooking, 'kay? Go splash some cold water on your face until you can talk, okay?"

Maura nodded and got up, leaving the room. Jane returned the food to the heat and shook her head. "Thought she liked _ossobuco_." Of course, returning the pans to their respective burners caused the originally burned butter to smoke again. She made a face and switched on the fan in the oven hood, cleaned out the pan, and started the butter over. Fortunately, the good meat hadn't been ruined.

Just before the second batch of butter was about to burn, she took it back off the heat, tossed it, and started a third time. The smell had alerted her this time, and with that, she'd come to knowledge. _Shit, it's the burnt_ smell _. Just like the house today._ Something about burning was setting Maura off. Several minutes later, after finally putting the veal onto the pan at the right moment instead of waiting too long, she called out. "Maura, honey? I can't leave the stove, but are you okay? Need to come back in and talk? It doesn't smell like that anymore." With one hand, she turned the suction fan to its highest setting.

From the bathroom, over the oven venting fan that filled the house with its enormous roar, came the faintly-heard shout of "Yyyaaaah." A few minutes later, when the meat was ready to be flipped, Maura emerged, a wad of toilet paper in her hand; Jane really needed to get more facial tissues in there. "Sorry," she said, muted and small, as she resumed her seat on the kitchen school. "I didn't mean to react like that." _Language. Intelligible language. Thank God._

"There are some tissues on the coffee table," Jane pointed out, jerking her chin in that direction. "I'm sorry, I didn't think the smell... " Waving one hand, Jane turned to check on the risotto. "Do you need me to order out? Or... Go out? I can change." She barely registered Maura's voice saying 'no.' With all the excess butter in the air, Jane lost her grip on the spoon, causing it to land a little too hard on the spoon-rest, and splattering her face with hot butter.

"Ah! Shit!" snapped Jane, wiping at her face with the apron.

Having not seen the splatter, only heard the smack of the spoon, Maura startled. "What? I said I was sorry!" Again, she blew her nose - apparently there had already been a lot of that, in the bathroom, drowned out by the oven vent - and tossed the toilet paper wad into the kitchen waste basket, then headed for the living room for the other box of tissues. There were two in it. "Really?" Maura asked rhetorically, in what she thought was a quieter voice, and stalked off to the bedroom, the last known location in which Jane kept such supplies.

Moments later, a louder and harsher version of "Really?" echoed from the back room, followed by a swift opening and closing of the hallway linen closet, and Maura stomped back into the kitchen with an empty box in her hand. "You're completely out of tissues. How do you function?"

"By not crying at every damned thing," Jane said, holding a wet paper towel to her face with one hand and, yet again, moving the food off the burners with the other. The one thing one could always say about a hot butter splatter was that it was going to go right into the eye.

Stung, Maura caught herself up short. "Excuse me?" she asked, still fragile, but now more annoyed by the lack of tissues, and seriously affronted at the implication inherent in Jane's unthinking comment.

"I said," Jane repeated, "by not crying at every damned thing. Or by using toilet paper if I have to, or paper towels, like right now." She waved the sodden paper product to illustrate her point. Her eye no longer hurt; it had really been mostly surprise, not pain. Still, if she could suck it up, surely Maura could, too. "Seriously, you can't even be around burned food now? What, do you miss your childhood cook who did everything perfectly? Are you thinking about the cows in perpetual postpartum depression and how eating dairy products is unethical? What?"

"N- Yes, the baby cows, but _no!_ " Maura replied, well on her way to having to cry again. "The butter smells just like the house today." As Jane continued to stare at her, getting the words, but uncomprehending as to their underlying meaning, she sighed. Wouldn't it be easier if Jane just understood her? "And the house today smells just like the other house..."

 _Oh._ Comprehension dawned in Jane's mind, followed swiftly by her face.

Today they had worked their first arson, or even fire related, case they'd worked in the year and a half since the shooting of Patrick Doyle.

But on the other, it had been a damned _-year_ -and-a-damned _-half!_ Eighteen, no, nineteen months now, since Maura had watched Jane shoot her biological father.

How long _was_ a reasonable length of time to get over your best friend shooting your father? Probably another couple years at this rate.

Jane cursed the circumstances. _It would be so much easier if I could just tell her,_ she complained mentally. But of all the secrets she had to keep, by her own fears or by outside pressure, this was one she had no right to share with the woman who was her best friend. Which meant she had to not talk about the subject in the first place, or she'd get too close and Maura would figure things out. _Damn it. Damn HIM,_ she thought angrily.

But just as quickly, Jane sighed. She wasn't really angry at Maura. She was angry at pretty much everyone else, who made it necessary for her to keep to herself all the reasons Maura shouldn't have to be angry at _her_. Though the acidity of her emotions ate away at her stomach lining, she let the outward manifestation of anger subside. "I'm sorry, Maur. Come here. I should have realized it was going to get to you today."

"Thank you," Maura sniffled as she dropped the empty tissue boxes on the countertop, picked up a paper towel for her face, and then sank into Jane's open arms. The _risotto_ and _ossobuco_ would wait for a little while longer.

They stood in the kitchen for a while, the food simmering away on its own without fear of overcooking, and Jane gently patted Maura's back. "Do you want me to work with Pike instead for the rest of the case?" she asked, pressing her cheek against Maura's head.

"No," replied the shorter woman as she leaned in. "I'll be fine. It all just built up today. I'm a little bit close to the surface, that's all. Like a sunburn. Everything stings when it touches me today. But I'll be okay. It might... be mostly the smell of a burnt house, but it might also be a _little_ related to my current state within my menstrual cycle."

Okay, so it _was_ PMS, after all. Jane took mental note. She could diagnose, would be called wrong, but if correct, the point would later be acknowledged. Good to know. _Ah, the things you learn in your first relationship with another woman._ She'd thought the learning curve would be fairly steep, and would consist mostly of the differences between sex with men and sex with women. Who knew women were as emotionally mystifying to each other as they were to the males of the species?

* * *

Hours had gone by with no noise. Vince was as comfortable as one could be on the floor of a diner. _This was a lot more fun when I was a kid,_ he thought in the dimly lit room. For a while, he and Angela had talked about divorce, what it was like to be alone. Angela had admitted she didn't mind not having someone snoring in the bed with you, and Vince had agreed, telling her that the second Mrs. Korsak was a snorer and a drooler.

"Oh that's horrible," laughed Angela.

"Worst part was when she started cheating on me, I was _glad_! All I could think was 'Thank god! She's drooling on someone else!' Ain't that terrible?" They both laughed over the awful absurdity of it.

Angela twisted the potholder in her hands. "You ever... y'know? Cheat?" Vince shook his head. "Never?"

Firmly, he told her, "Not even once. Too Catholic for it, I guess."

"Not too Catholic to divorce," Angela pointed out, mournfully.

They both sighed at that. "You got to make your allowances somewhere. If we were all perfect, we wouldn't need the church, right? Brophy said that." Angela hunched her shoulders, holding something private about that topic. Right. "How's Tommy doing? Janie just gives me the highlights."

Relieved now, Angela proceeded to detail out how the youngest, and most troublesome, Rizzoli was getting by. That lead into talking about how none of her kids had produced grandchildren, yet. "I just want one. I don't even care anymore if they're married. Janie could do what that Murphy Brown lady did."

Vince took a moment, studying Angela's face. "Really? You'd be okay with that?" he wondered. Just how far did Catholicism reach?

The elder Rizzoli female had to think about it for a moment. "Well, no," she admitted. "I wouldn't want her to have to raise a kid all alone. The life she lives, the stuff she gets herself into, it wouldn't be right, having a kid always wondering if her ma was going to come pick her up from day care that evening. But if she had somebody, you know, I wouldn't be so mad if he wasn't married to her, or if he wasn't Catholic, or wasn't Italian, or... " Angela trailed off, glancing nervously towards Vince. "Or whatever," she closed weakly. "She's a loving person, my Jane. She'd be a good mother, and a good wife. Or not-wife."

Vince was impressed. The woman had come a good long way from just two months ago, when any family model other than a nice, Italian, Catholic man sweeping her nice, Italian, Catholic daughter off her feet and out of the law enforcement field to have children and stay home cooking for them. "Even if he's the one who wants to stay home? Or even if neither of them stay home?" he wondered, testing the waters. _He_ wouldn't care, not that it was his business in the same way it was Angela's, but after all, he was still Jane's partner and wanted to be able to reassure her in the unlikely event that she got introspective enough not to realize she was talking to him out loud. "Even if the guy's not... much like your idea of the perfect guy for her?"

"Yeah," Angela replied after a pause for consideration. "If he's perfect for Janie, it doesn't matter if he's perfect for me. I don't have to live with them, at least till I'm old enough to be wearing black all the time like a widow. And it wouldn't even matter if - _did you hear that?"_ her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as she perked up, suddenly alert once more.

There it was, that scrabbling, scratching sound, coming from the stack of plastic bins in the open pantry. With the experience of decades on the force, Vince snapped the flashlight up and on, pinging the spot in one smooth move. _I'm a badass,_ he thought to himself, inappropriately pleased with his aim. The box he targeted shook. "Gotcha," he muttered. "Hold the bag ready."

Creeping with amazing silence for a big man, Vince inched his way to the source of the noise. Step, pause. Step, pause. Wait. The sound faded. "Where did it go?" hissed Angela in a fair approximation of a four-year-old's stage whisper.

Vince raised his free hand, holding up one finger. "Shh!" Ignoring, for the moment, Angela's no-less-quiet 'Sorry,' he moved a box. Nothing. With one foot, he nudged the box of baking soda (the size of a small dog, good lord!) to one side.

The next sound came from his head's level, and Vince's eyes went wide. Just like the time he'd felt, more than saw, a perp jumping out a window at him, time slowed down. The bin of flour tipped over with a loud, shrill howl. "Shit!" he swore, dropping the flashlight in a vain attempt to grab the bin. Both flour and light hit the floor, and Vince's face was assaulted by a dark, furry, clawed creature.

All this, to the tune of Rizzoli shrieks of "Vince!" and "Oh God!" and, after far too long for Vince's liking, a triumphant, _"I GOT IT!"_ And there Angela stood, holding a flour sack that was entirely still. She looked nervous as hell, but also quite proud of herself. "Now what do I do with it?"

"It's not moving," Vince noted as he shone the flashlight onto the sack, which bulged, not roundly as with the back or head of a creature, but squarishly. "What's in that?"

Angela opened the sack and sighed. "Paprika. I think it fell off the top of the shelf." She put it away and then noticed, "You're bleeding. You know what? Let's just give it up for the night. Let me get the first aid kit."

Now was definitely _not_ the time to ask Angela out, Vince realized, ruefully. Very few women actually wanted, at least enough to risk blood contamination, to kiss it better.

* * *

"Finally," Maura sighed in relief as she opened her email and found news of a hit on their homeless arson victim's identity through dental records. Jane would want this information as soon as possible; better text. She did so: _I have received a dental identification of our arson victim. Would you come downstairs, and bring Detectives Korsak and Frost if they're available? I also have responses on toxins, trace, and another matter that I think you and they will find interesting._

Not a minute later came Jane's reply: _Really? Coulda been 3 words: Bring guys down._ Maura chuckled. She knew how to communicate succinctly when necessary, but felt fairly certain that clarity was valued. She'd never change, and hoped Jane wouldn't, either.

Once she had them all grouped around, which made her feel momentarily like Hercule Poirot, though he'd been a Belgian and she'd only gone to school in France, Maura began her oral dissertation, mentally awarding Frost points for actually calling it such when she paused at one point for breath. She also awarded points to herself for causing Jane to say _Later that same day?_ and make the hand motion, drawing air towards herself as if in the hope it would disgorge some readily digestible information. Jane wasn't actually this impatient, she'd learned over the years of their friendship. She just liked to know the bullet points first, then come back later for the rest of the information, which _did_ interest her.

So Maura decided to present, without further delaying of gratification for all four of them, those very selfsame bullet points. "Our victim's name was Marcus Jenkins. His last known address, other than a post office box where he received his food stamps, was in Brookline. Just before the economic downturn, he lived a few blocks from me. I had a hit on his dental records; he had extensive work to correct a severe overbite, removal of wisdom teeth, diastema - a sizable gap between the two main incisors," she explained for Korsak, though he looked the least interested of all of them, barely keeping his eyes open. "Also, there's a general thinness of enamel which tells me that at one point he was accustomed to using over-the-counter whitening products. They don't actually take away stains, you know. They erode the stained enamel and reveal whiter enamel beneath it, which over the long term presents several problems, because enamel doesn't regrow."

For the second time, Maura squealed on the inside. Making Jane repeat, "Later that same day!" was worth extra points.

"It means he once led an upper-middle to lower-upper class lifestyle. Who else cares about whiter teeth, and will spend the twenty to thirty dollars for a home product? At a higher income level than that, Mr. Jenkins would have paid a dentist for a better form of whitening treatment which actually does bleach the enamel rather than wearing it away. Now," she went to turn the body over, "if you'll remember, we saw some blood pooling here, here, here, and here." Her gloved hand gestured, sadly almost entirely unlike Vanna White. "On a," she paused. There was no way she'd use the word hunch. "On a suspicion of familiarity, I photographed them, scanned them in, and looked up measurements until I found it. These came from the bed of a truck, in which I believe we can safely say that the body was transported _very_ soon after death, so that the blood settled in these places before he was placed in his final destination where Officer Rizzoli found him."

Jane awarded herself a few points, too. She'd thought so at the time, but having gone through a recent spate in which none of her guesses had panned out, she hadn't wanted to say so. "I figured that. Jeez, Maura, could you vague it up for me a little bit?"

"No," replied Maura in her best Dr. Smartypants smugness, "but I can," she actually made the air quotes for bonus points, "'specific' it up for you. How about a Ford F150, made in the last four years since they altered the style of bedliner used, with possible paint chipping from both the original Tuxedo Black and the vanity overcoat of Blue Flame Metallic?" Oh, yeah. She was going to get to be on top later. Jane's expression was one of adoration as well. It was a poorly kept secret that she loved when Maura was that smart.

"Okay, Ford F150 truck. Bet that goes with the tire impressions," Jane said, looking over at Frost. "Are those the final results on the paint?" she added, this time looking at Maura.

Suffering a minor points loss Maura replied truthfully, "Yes." A long pause. "No." She inhaled deeply, "It's _possible_ there were more layers of paint. But the tire impressions do belong to the stock brand, commonly found on Ford F150."

Jane smirked, wrinkling her eyes at Maura and scoring a point for herself, though Maura remained comfortably in the lead. "Okay, Frost, we need a record of all black trucks with blue flames on 'em that drove past Dewey Park that night. Check traffic records."

"No," Maura was quick to correct, "not a black truck with blue flames. Blue Flame Metallic is the color of paint. You're looking for a metallic blue truck that was originally black."

"I stand corrected," Jane replied saucily, returning Maura's look. It wasn't quite eye sex, but if it went much further, they would definitely need... what was the equivalent of an eye condom? _Contact lenses,_ thought the detective, and it caused her to grin even bigger. She'd tell Maura later. Should be worth a point or two.

"Gonna need a warrant to pull the red-light cameras," Korsak pointed out, stifling a yawn. "And it's your turn."

And there was an eye sex cockblock. _Thank you, Vince._ Jane sighed, "Maybe Frankie needs more experience -" She stopped at Korsak's glare. Right. Dumping too much work on the guy trying to get into the detective's squad was frowned on. "Vince, what happened to your face?"

Dr. Smartypants couldn't help but respond, especially when Vince didn't right away. "scratches in ones, twos, threes, and one swipe of four going downward from left to right over the bride of the nose and continuing a little over the cheek. Size indicates something roughly the size of a small dog, raccoon, cat, a large rat, some marsupials. Oh, or there's a species of clawed frog, _Trichobatrachus robustus,_ which... um... is from Central Africa, so it probably isn't... Never mind."

Two men and one woman stared back at her. Uncomfortable, she cleared her throat and fell silent, glancing elsewhere. Eventually, Frost mentioned, "I think the phrase we're all looking for is, _Aaaaanyway,_ what happened to your face?"

Korsak looked oddly terrified. He glanced at Jane mostly and finally said, "Just a little incident. With an animal. That's all." He cleared his throat. "How about I take the warrant and you two look up Mr. Jenkins' family?" And he bailed.

Jane and Frost looked at each other, perplexed. "You know, he wasn't at his desk when I called last night," Frost pointed out. "Didn't answer his cell phone either." The detectives shared a frown and looked after Korsak. "Maybe he had a date."

"Aw, don't do that to me, Frost! It's bad enough I have to look at Vince in short-shorts at the gym!" groaned Jane. Maura stifled a laugh. "Oh fine, you can laugh. Wait until he wants to join us in yoga."

Perhaps feeling outnumbered, Frost made a hasty retreat. "I'll grab Frankie. We can look up the Jenkins." And with that, Jane and Maura were alone.

It was a moment before they both cracked up. "Okay, Maura, give, how many points was that?"

"Just since you came downstairs? Fourteen," Maura bragged, failing in the least to look or sound modest. Perhaps because she wasn't trying very hard. "You?"

For a moment, Jane looked surprised. She tried to cover it, "Only fourteen?" That only delayed the inevitable, "Eight. And that's counting the three I had upstairs." Jane sighed, "So you're ahead by six. How are you going to take advantage of that situation, Doctor?"

Maura tossed her ponytail of scientific justice to the side. "In the office?" she asked, haughtily. "We have rules, Detective." They both attempted to look seriously at each other, and promptly failed. It was for the best than no one else was around. "I think you should go back to your desk while I contemplate how best to... redeem my points later."

"You do that," agreed Jane, leaving the morgue. This was one game she didn't mind losing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews and Maura gets to use all her points.
> 
> Note: Ossobuco is one spelling for the name of the food; osso bucco is another. Both are valid. Have fun researching which part(s) of Italy use which spelling - or maybe the difference is that one is archaic. We're not going to just hand you the answers to everything - that would be too easy! Go research and learn something!


	5. We Got Sold Out

"Got it!" announced Frost. With a swipe of his hand, the text jumped to life on the big screen in the AV room. "Marcus Jenkins, formerly of Brookline. Worked for a bank that went under just last year."

The face of their homeless victim, well dressed in a suit, smiling, with a glass sculpture saying 'Employee of the Year - 2009,' was bracketed by text explaining how he'd been the brightest find for The Anchor Savings And Trust. "Employee of the year for 2005, 2006 and 2008. Who beat him out in 2007?" wondered Jane.

"Christine Thompkins, landed a mega-million deal with some oil baron. Biggest buy of the bank's history," read Frost, highlighting that text on the screen.

Korsak whistled through his teeth. "Damn, bet she's doing okay now."

Apparently not. "Nope. When the bank failed she traded her MBA for a phone. Works a help line for Verizon." Frost typed on his keyboard, "Jenkins got fired in 2009, two weeks after he won employee of '08."

"What for? Being too awesome to keep?" asked Korsak, sarcastically.

"Embezzling."

Jane winced, "Yowch." She read the public dismissal notice carefully. "Anchor never filed charges. Just accused him and fired him. He didn't even fight it."

Frost nodded. "Gets worse. His wife takes the kids and moves back in with her mother. He stayed in the house until it got foreclosed on, then he just vanished." When recounting events or speculating, the detectives tended to play fast-and-loose with tenses, switching rapidly between present and past. Good thing Maura wasn't there, Jane reflected; she would have felt compelled to point it out, because it gave her almost as big a headache as listening to people guess in the first place.

"Right into the system," grumbled Korsak. "Was there any proof he did it?"

"Not really. A couple hearsay complaints, but they never found the money. Company went under so soon after, I think they let insurance eat it. Ended up getting bought up by another bank, but they kept the Anchor name."

Jane sat on the edge of Frost's desk and stared at the screen. "So probably not related to how he ended up dead. Unless... Frost, who held the papers on the Brookline house?"

While Frost looked confused, Korsak picked up the clue. "Thinking the same bank got stuck with the houses and this is some big insurance scam?"

"One of the oldest motives in the book," Jane pointed out.

But Frost burst that bubble too. "Not this one. Anchor had the mortgage on Jenkins' place. They got picked up by B of A. The house down where we _suspect_ Jenkins died is still owned by Blake Sanden, mortgaged through Wells Fargo. He works for Anchor though."

That was interesting. "Coincidence?"

"He works in legal for trusts, CEO of federal trusts, nothing to do with mortgage," Forst read. "Why wouldn't he go through his own company?"

While Maura would probably know the detailed answer, they had to make do with Korsak's shorter version at the moment. "Lot of people don't like to use their employer if they can get a better deal somewhere else. Wells Fargo does more mortgage business, so they're going to have better deals." At Frost's look, Korsak muttered, "Second Mrs. Korsak got the house."

Jane drummed a heel on Frost's desk. "Did he ever file insurance claims on the arson?" He had, assured Frost, pulling up those files. "He took the fire department's claim of accidental fire, due to squatters... He paid the fine for not locking the place up without contest?" Technically it was illegal to allow an empty house to be accessed by the homeless. Jane had never seen anyone actually roll over and pay the fine for it without question. Admittedly, she'd not worked a lot of arson. "Frost, you've got more experience in this."

The youngest detective looked shocked and flattered that Jane thought of him as more experienced at something besides computers. He _had_ worked arson cases more recently. "It's not too out of the ordinary. If the house wasn't getting a lot of viewers, they probably weren't checking on it every day." Korsak scoffed, pointing out the house was damned pricey. "Right, and it's a money pit. Keep throwing cash at it and it's not selling _and_ the economy's getting worse? Getting it condemned would cost less in the long run. If it's not a historical landmark."

"And getting it burnt down so you have to tear it down means you pass Go and land on Free Parking," Jane muttered. "Sanden doesn't own a Ford F150, does he?" Because that would be too easy, of course he didn't. "Right," she sighed. "Something doesn't add up... Frost, find me that damn truck. I need a cup of coffee."

Jane pointedly ignored Korsak's mortified look as she walked out of the room and headed to the cafe.

* * *

The cafe was open and the coffee urns nice and full, but that was about all that could be said for it. There was flour everywhere, along with scattered biscuit and pancake mixes, spices, and generally unidentifiable debris. Well, not _everywhere_. There were a few customer tables and chairs that weren't quite covered, and the floor had been recently mopped as well; the bucket with dirty mop water rested in a corner, ignored for now, but soon to be in use again in the cooking area.

It appeared as if a massive cleaning were underway, which made sense, given the level of chaos. While Angela removed every object from a surface and wiped down the surface, Stanley cleaned each individual object, then handed it back to her. As she accepted a salt shaker from the bald, compulsively orderly man, Angela glanced over to see who'd come in, and smiled to recognize her daughter. "There's coffee," she pointed with one elbow as she put the salt back in place. "I even got the sugar dispenser clean again, so you can have that, and there's milk and cream. None of that soy stuff Maura likes, though."

"Do you see Maura?" asked Jane as she fetched herself a cup and began doctoring it.

Angela shrugged one shoulder and set more bottles in place as Stanley handed them to her. "No, but don't you usually bring her a cup too? Oh, and if one of those is for Vince, he's been taking it with milk instead of half-and-half lately."

Jane paused; the second paper cup was actually for herself, to put on like a jacket for the first cup so she wouldn't burn her fingers on the too-thin cardboard cup holding her own drink. "Thanks," she replied in a voice heavy with suspicion, Spidey-senses tingling. "I'll keep that in mind. So, what happened in here? It looks like a crime scene, except that you'll have a hell of a time dusting for prints."

Her mother slammed the walls up faster than the time Jane, at six, had asked what the funny noises were from her parent's bedroom the night before. "There was a stocking mishap," muttered Angela. "Look, I already heard it from Stanley, so I don't wanna hear it from my daughter." The owner, perhaps sensing a fight between mother and daughter, made an excuse to go sort boxes in back and vanished.

Jane watched Stanley, and was appalled to see the chaos continued all the way into the pantry. "Ma! Seriously, what happened? I thought you were taking inventory last night!"

Shaking a towel in Jane's direction, Angela fussed, "Hush. I may have knocked over one of the flour containers. That's all. It's nothing."

"All? Nothing? This looks like the _nothing_ from when me, Frankie, and Tommy tried to make you Mothers' Day breakfast, and you made us all promise to never try cooking for you again."

Angela's brows lifted. Jane had nowhere to comment. "Oh, really? Well, you cook for Maura."

While Jane wanted to ignore her mother, she blurted, "What? I cook for myself, too. It's not a big -" Jane sipped the coffee and cringed. It was horrible. "Oh, god, what is _wrong_ with the coffee?"

Mama Rizzoli did a fair job of looking haughty to cover her sheepishness. "There might be a little bit of burnt flour stuck in the pot. So, what about it? You cook for Maura?"

"You just said I did, so I don't know why you're asking now as if you don't know," Jane pointed out as she dumped substantially more flavor-masking milk and sugar into her cup. "What's the big deal?"

Angela frowned. This had been easier when Jane was a child. Few things had been, but questioning? Questioning had been easy. Her naturally honest child would have fallen for any trick in the mother's handbook, back in the day. "You made her _ossobuco in bianco_ last night."

Jane stopped adulterating her coffee and stared. "How in the hell do you know that?" she demanded. Korsak was going to die.

"Ah hah!" shouted Angela, pointing triumphantly at her daughter. "I knew it!" Puffing up, Angela put the danishes back in place. "I saw your shopping list," she added, smugly.

The next time someone asked why Jane was such a good detective, she might actually have to answer honestly that she inherited the Nosy Parker skill from her mother. "Oh. How did you know it was for Maura?" Her mouth asked the question before Jane's brain caught up to realize she was skating right out onto thin ice.

Like a barracuda, Angela's grip on the truth was vice-like. "Like you got a man in your life? Unless that Dean guy is back in town."

Jane's own reaction was visceral, "No!" That was a little loud. "No," she added, drawing the word out. "No." Firm. Decisive. Oh, god. "Dean is _not_ in town, and if he is, I don't want to know. No, I do want to know, but I don't want to see him." Both of Angela's eyebrows went up with interest. "Ma, come on."

Giving a little head tilt, Angela went on her way, putting things back in order. "Wasn't that good in the sack?"

"Ma!" Jane clapped a hand to her own forehead, as if this had the power to magically shut her mother up. "I'm not talking about my sex life with you!"

Again, Angela pointed. "Aha! So you _did_ sleep with him!"

 _If this keeps up, she's gonna know everything._ It was clearly time to give Angela a little truth. "Yes, I cooked dinner for Maura last night. She likes Italian food, so I made her one of Nonna's recipes."

That, more than anything, arrested Angela's attention. "You told her Nonna Rizzoli's recipes?"

With the pressure off, Jane felt more confident. "No, I just _made_ it while she was in the room. She _might_ have memorized it, but she wasn't really paying attention." Jane paused. It was entirely out of the question to go into details about Maura's mini-breakdown the night before. It was even more out of the question that Angela be told about what happened after dinner. Thank you very much.

Before Jane could think of a safe place to direct the conversation, Angela filled the gap. "You're spending too much time with her, Janie."

Jane looked affronted, if not downright offended. "Who says? You know, when I was in junior high and high school, you were always after me to make friends and get to know people and be _happy,_ and now that I am, you're going to rag on me for it? Priceless. This is classic Angela Rizzoli." Again she tasted her coffee, and this time, the flavor was too sweet for her. She added more coffee and tried again. Nope, not enough milk. "Look, I don't know what best friends were like when you had any besides Carla Talucci, but in _my_ world, best friends spend time together. Do I get all up in your business about hanging out with her? I don't like her, but hey, if you're into gossip and complaining about cellulite, knock yourself out, because it's not my business, any more than how much time I spend with my best friend is any of yours."

"Touchy," Angela noted calmly, in the way that was possible whenever one had needled someone else too far. "But now that we're on the subject of Maura -"

"Which _you_ brought up."

"- you need to," Angela glanced around, lowered her voice. "You need to stop teasing her."

Setting down her cup before the temptation grew too great and she flung its contents right at the woman who had writhed for forty-one hours with the effort of bringing her into the world, Jane whirled around. "Hey. I don't make fun of her... to her face. Anymore. Not in any way that hurts her, _ever,_ so don't even. I just said, we're best friends. I don't do stuff that hurts my best friend."

Angela straightened her posture to the point that she almost overcompensated and fell right off the chair atop which she was precariously balanced, the weight of her breasts nearly sending her right to the floor. With a yelp she righted herself, steadied, and huffed until she could get her nose in the air again. "That is not what I meant," said the elder Rizzoli. "I mean you need to stop _teasing_ her. You know very well she's," and again her voice lowered to a whisper, "bisexual. Or pansexual, or potsexual, or whatever-the-hell-sexual she is."

Momentarily, Jane was struck by how the Muppets called Gonzo a 'whatever' and how absurd this conversation was. Flummoxed, she demanded, "So? Ma, you're not giving her any crap about that, are you? Because if you are, I swear..."

Angela replied with just as much exaggerated dignity as she could muster, which was an impressive amount, "I would never do that. My point is, I think she's a little warm for your form. You oughtta take that into consideration."

"Wh... ?" Jane hardly knew where to take the rest of that word, let alone form a complete sentence. Even her usual _what the crap?_ didn't seem sufficient. Both hands waved outward, palms up, as if ask the universe for some sort of Rosetta Stone for translating her mother's gibberish into something vaguely humanoid. Preferably, English. "I'm sorry, you think _what?"_

"I think she's into you," Angela said slowly, as if educating a preschooler. "I think _she_ thinks she's got a chance with you, and it's stopping her from finding a nice young... whatever... to settle down with."

Jane shook her head, not just to negate her mother's series of assumptions, but to rattle loose anything within her mind that might fall out and provide an end to this entire line of thought. _Danger, Danger Detective Robinson._ "Ma... No. Believe me, Maura's doing fine. She's got a great... life."

Angela's brows shot upward in surprise. "Wait, you know this for a fact? She tells you about this kind of thing?"

"What part of _best friends_ is hard for you to grasp, Ma?" Jane sighed. "Of course she tells me stuff. I tell her stuff, too. And before you ask, no, I'm not going to tell _you_ stuff. But look," she picked up her coffee, now cold, but seasoned perfectly to mask the flavor of burnt flour and old gym shoes, "I promise you, neither one of us is stopping the other from dating anyone. We know what the limits are and we know when to give each other some free time and space, okay? Oh, and by the way," she added, slinging back the entire cup of coffee in one long drink and slam-dunking the empty cup into the nearest garbage can, "'Warm for my form?' The 80s called. They want their slang back."

"You think you're funny, don't you?" Angela scowled and threw the towel at Jane, literally. "Out! Shoo! Go away!"

* * *

"Warm for your form?" asked Maura, folding herself into yet another complicated, pretzel like position.

The idea of yoga over lunch was not top of Jane's list of fun activities, but it meant she got to spend time with Maura in tight clothes, so she wasn't really complaining. Even though it meant trying to put her body into shapes that she was _pretty_ sure God had never intended. "That's what she said," replied Jane, keeping her voice low enough to not raise the ire of their instructor. Brock was only so forgiving.

They shifted positions in relative silence. "Well, she's right, but I'm fairly certain the 80s would like their slang back."

"Thank you!" Jane whispered. "Exactly what I said."

"Shh," Maura cautioned as Brock came closer, and endeavored to look perfectly focused, which she actually probably was. That big genius brain of hers let Maura do something she called parallel processing, in which she could think of several things at once. In fact, meditating, which was meant to clear the mind, actually only dialed her down to thinking two or three things at once instead of seven or eight.

Once Brock passed by, looking to correct someone who was clearly meant for a beginner class instead of the intermediate one they were taking, she glanced towards Jane and mentioned, "You know, this position may come in handy for you. Learn to do it right, and you might have a chance beating me at your new favorite game."

"My what?" asked Jane, caught confused, and nearly slipping in her hand position. "I'm good," she announced, as Brock looked over at her. "Sweaty." Jane put all of her weight on one wrist, wiped her hand off on her pants, and glared at Maura, "What new favorite game?"

With a exceptionally prim look, Maura said, "Twister." It was amazing, how innocent she could look in this moment.

Jane, on the other hand, suddenly thought of the reason she'd liked playing Twister with Maura and, had her head not been downward, probably would have blushed. "Oh that game," she muttered. "I don't know, it didn't seem like you liked it."

"Later," Maura murmured as she shifted out of Downward-Facing Dog and into the next pose, "I'll show you how wrong you are."

Jane promptly fell over, cursing. Brock, who had returned to his favorite pair of troublemakers from an angle at which they couldn't see him, squatted down. "Breathe," he instructed firmly. "In through the nose. Hold. Out through the mouth."

"I'm breathing, I'm breathing," Jane muttered, red-faced after all.

She was never so thankful for a page from Frost, telling her the warrant to pull the red-light cameras came through, and he had a hit. "No cell phones, Jane," intoned Brock.

"Sorry. Case." She smiled and popped to her feet. "Frost found our truck, _and_ the owner's someone we know. Maura, will you grab my mat?" And Jane was out the door.

Not invited to the death party, Maura continued with the class. "You'll never beat me at this rate, Jane Rizzoli," she said quietly.

* * *

Pulling up at Dewey Park again, Frankie carefully parked his sister's car. "I'm just saying, this was all kinds of inappropriate, Janie."

"You want to help with the case or not?" challenged Jane, pulling her boots on before stepping out of the car.

While it was strange, Frankie had to admit his sister had mad skills, changing in a car while avoiding any possible charges of indecent exposure, or embarrassing the hell out of her younger brother. He put his hat on and locked the car, hustling to keep up with Jane. When she put her cop-walk on, she managed to walk faster than he could, while still looking like she was sauntering. Or swaggering.

As they walked over to the other police officers, Jane switched into official cop-mode. "Tell me about your buddy, Bayless, again."

Frankie swallowed, "Right. I met him that night. He offered me a cup of coffee, said he was looking for work. Gave me a card to give to Tommy -"

"You didn't, right?" demanded Jane and looked relieved when Frankie shook his head. "How many nights have you done Occupy watch?"

That was a new question. "Uh. Four, maybe five times a month. I'd have to check the roster." Jane stopped walking and turned to look at Frankie, expectantly. "Right!" He pulled his phone out, a present from Maura, and checked his schedule. "Two times this month. Four in October."

Jane nodded, her face serious and thoughtful. Mentally, Frankie took notes. "So you're kind of familiar with these guys." When Frankie made a 'sort of' hand gesture, she clucked at him and started walk again, leaving him scrambling to keep up. As soon as she hit a knot of kids, she flashed her badge, "Not trying to cause trouble, I'm looking for a car."

There was a stonewalling from the kids. "We talked to your fat friend already," snapped on.

When Frankie stiffened, Jane touched his arm. "The plainclothes or the guy in uniform?" asked Jane, casually. "The guy in the disco era suit is my partner. We're working on a homicide, and I promise, we're not here to mess with you."

One of the younger kids, clearly in his twenties, with just a dusting of scruff, seemed somewhat sympathetic. "What kind of car?" he asked.

"You in charge?" Jane didn't sound skeptical, just curious. Looking for information.

The kid laughed. "No one's in charge, Olivia Benson. This is a movement of the people, by the people and for the people."

Jane arched her eyebrows at the reference to the character from _Law & Order: SVU_, but made no comment. "Okay, then asking you is as good as anyone else," she decided. "I'm looking for a blue truck." She pulled a picture out of the truck in full color, printed by Frankie off the Ford website before he'd driven them in.

To his credit, the kid looked at the picture seriously. "Sorry, no. I don't know cars, especially not gas guzzlers." Jane nodded and pulled out the picture of Greg Bayless. "Never seen him either."

The crowd was more of the same, as they worked their way towards where Frost and Korsak were asking the same question. "You get anywhere?" sighed Korsak, sounding defeated and picking at the scab on the bridge of his nose.

"Nada," shrugged Jane, though she didn't sound surprised. "You know, I got a better idea. Wait here." Jane vanished into the crowed and a moment later appeared, standing on something to put her head above the crowd. "Human Mic Check!" she shouted.

Much to Frankie's amazement, the phrase was repeated down the lines until everyone, it seemed, was looking at his sister. "I'm Detective Jane Rizzoli!" she held her badge up. After a murmur of surprise, the short sentence was repeated over and over through the crowd, in a demented game of telephone. "Two days ago, a man was found dead here." Jane paused, waiting for the sentence to filter through the crowd. "We think that someone in a Blue Flame Metallic Ford F150 dumped the body here to make you guys look bad."

This time, when the news was disseminated, a growl grew. The tension hung in the air, and for a moment, Frankie considered reaching for his nightstick. Frost's hand on his arm stayed the motion. "Just wait, Jane knows what she's doing."

"I'm not so sure," replied Frankie, far more familiar with Jane's spur-of-the-moment ideas than anyone else. Except possibly Korsak. Sometimes they were amazing, like the time she'd gotten Tommy and Frankie free tickets to see the Sox. And then there were other times... Frankie glanced at Korsak, whose hands were making fists at his side.

Jane, meanwhile, held up her hands. "I don't think you guys have anything to do with it." Her voice was clear and firm. "But I, _we_ need your help. A man died. A man who, just like you, got sold out. One of us." That seemed to catch people's attention, and the information passed from mouth to ear, mouth to ear, through the crowd. "If anyone's seen that truck, or knows a man named Greg Bayless, we'll be over there by the cars. I'm passing around a picture of the guy in case you've seen him but you don't know his name. If you recognize him, come and talk to us. Thank you."

As soon as her thanks and the photographs were spread around the group, Jane dropped out of sight. It was a tense, breathless moment for Frankie until she showed up again. Jane had that 'I am way too pleased with myself' swagger in her step, and smirked, leading the boys back to the cars. "You proud of yourself, Rizzoli?" growled Korsak, clearly not amused.

"Yeah, I kind of am, Korsak." Jane patted his arm and lent against her car door.

"You just gave away our lead suspect to a bunch of unwashed hippies." Korsak was at his worst, and continued on in a rant. "We come out here, just trying to do our damn jobs, and they give us crap. It's like this every time a bunch of uppity kids think they deserve so much better. I mean, yeah, the economy's in the crapper. So get a job flipping burgers like the rest of us!"

Frost and Frankie shared a look of abject horror. Old man rant!

But Jane, Jane was everything Frankie wished he could be. She knew just what to say. "It's our own fault, Vince," she said, her voice crazy calm.

"How's that?" asked Korsak, surprised enough to derail his thought-train.

Jane bent over to tug at her sock. "Well, look at it. Since the fifties, we've been telling kids that if they don't work hard and go to college, they'll end up flipping burgers, or painting houses like Tommy, right?" Everyone nodded. "So they do. Like Maura, they go to college, they get impressive degrees. They get educated. They go into quarter-million-dollar debt, which is what college costs these days, or didn't you know that? They take out their loans, their parents mortgage their homes to the hilt to pay for the education, because they know how smart they are and how hard they'll work to be able to get those degrees and the good jobs so they can pay it all back. And then the only jobs out there are painting houses and flipping burgers, as if they'd never even finished high school, because a bunch of rich people think a CEO deserves eight hundred thou a year and another hundred thou as a bonus."

"Yeah, but how is that the bank's fault?" demanded Korsak.

Giving her brother an apologetic look, Jane explained. "You hear about these zero-percent down mortgages?" Korsak nodded. "Right, well the banks decided it was okay to lend to people who didn't have the down payment for a house. Folks who, in your parents day, would've been just turned down. Instead they buy a house that they shouldn't have, thinking that just because the bank says it's okay, that it really is. But they're only a paycheck away from losing it all."

"Which still isn't the bank's fault," he pressed.

"Really? Making a loan in bad faith isn't the bank's responsibility?" snapped Jane. "If I loan Tommy a hundred bucks, I know damn well I'm never seeing that money again. But if I loan you the same, you bet I expect it back, right? So these folks, they stopped looking at what's right and decided to go for the money. Pay the CEOs more, don't pay the little guy, and as soon as the house of cards collapses, cause people are buying houses and flipping them, wham. It's all over, folks lose their jobs, except the ones at the top, and now the bank's stuck foreclosing hundreds of houses evicting people. Like Ma."

That caught Frankie up short. "I thought Pop sold the house." He was shocked when Jane shook her head.

In a smaller voice, Korsak asked, "Isn't that illegal?"

"Should be," agreed Jane. "You think that you do everything the way you should, get up and go to your job, work hard, and you get the American dream. Instead, there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer. And for most of the rest of us, it's just getting tougher. There's... Look at how much America _makes_ , and how little we get? Vince, we _are_ the 99%. Hell, not even Maura's in the 1%. These guys, they know something is screwed up in this."

Frankie thought about how little he made a year in comparison to those CEOs, about how he'd been told to work hard, like his father, and everything would be fine, and blinked. "So everyone lied to us?" he asked.

"Basically." Jane sighed.

"How'd you get so damn smart, Jane?" asked Korsak, grumbling still.

Jane tilted her head and regarded Korsak. "I listened. Even when I got angry, Vince, I was listening to you, to them."

Mulling over that, the detectives, and Frankie, waited for someone, anyone, to come talk to them. After an hour, with the sun setting, Korsak grumbled, "Great plan, Rizzoli. They're probably telling Bayless to keep his ass in hiding." Jane shook her head and said nothing.

Another hour passed. When Frost suggested they leave, Jane said she'd stick around for a bit longer, which prompted Korsak to tell Frost they too were staying. Finally, after two and a half hours, a grizzled man, older than Korsak, walked up.

"Hey," he said, gruffly. He was neatly dressed in slacks and a button down. "Listen, I asked around and no one knows Greg." Holding out Jane's stack of pictures, he looked actually sorry.

Elbowing Frankie to take the pictures, Jane nodded. "I was pretty sure of that. Thanks anyway."

The man turned to go but hesitated. "I heard what you were telling these guys, Detective. You know it's a lot more than just that."

Now Jane looked rueful. Almost apologetic. "Rhetoric's not my gift, and neither is economics. I didn't go to college."

The man smiled. "Still. It's nice to find some cops who think." He held his hand out to Jane, and only Jane, who shook it. "Do you have a card?" She passed the card over, and the man left, promising to call if he found out anything about the truck or their suspect, keeping a photo of each.

"Okay then," grumbled Korsak. "You happy? Hours of nothing."

Jane patted Korsak's shoulder. "Sometimes, Vince, you got to remember what we stand for." She gestured at Frankie. "Sometimes we mean more than just a badge or a uniform. We're representing everyone who can't stand up and fight for themselves."

As Jane climbed into her car, Frankie heard Frost ask, "Where'd she learn that from?"

Frankie paused at the passenger door to Jane's car, and smiled when he heard Vince's somewhat chagrined answer. "Me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jane's explanation of Occupy is, indeed, a Cliff Notes version, and very incomplete. If you're interested in the movement, check out [occupyboston.org](http://occupyboston.org) and [occupywallst.org](http://occupywallst.org).
> 
> Meanwhile, reviews are like Angela's gnocchi. They keep us coming back.


	6. The Difference

Carefully arranging the takeout was a calming exercise. A repeat of the previous night's dinner issues was something Maura had wanted to avoid, so she'd picked up Chinese food on the way home, making sure to select some of Jane's favorite dishes, even though they weren't the most healthy. If dinner went well, perhaps the evening could be salvaged into something a little more than the previous night's cuddling.

Not that anything was wrong with that, but once you got used to a certain level and frequency of intimacy, the lack thereof became uncomfortable. One's body became accustomed to being permitted to build up and release certain chemicals associated with pleasure, trust, and relaxation. Like any other muscles or organs, those within the reproductive system benefited from regular exercise, producing feelings of health and contentment.

By no means secondary to the physical stimulation and fulfillment that sex generated were the emotional and mental enjoyments. To a person for whom words were vital, especially one socially awkward and who had difficulty understanding nonverbal cues, the very idea of being fluent in any form of nonverbal communication was more than novel, it was a revelation. Finding that not only could the body afford enjoyment, but that it also could become a vehicle for expression of emotions that not even her own formidable store of spoken languages could convey - and that, moreover, she could understand Jane's use of that same tactile, sensory language just as well - was a miracle that daily amazed her.

Sharing physical intimacy with Jane made her understand fully what had once seemed out of reach to her. All her research, all her halting, clumsy, maladroit fumblings with interpersonal connections, which at the time she had thoroughly and enthusiastically enjoyed, now seemed in retrospect like the cheap, plastic imitations that the were, prettily painted but essentially useless, when compared with what she now knew was the real thing. _This,_ not beauty, was what had once launched a thousand ships. _This_ was what made people veer from their carefully constructed lives and go out on their limbs, venture forth to new continents and planets, take up painting in their old age and become Grandma Moses, base-jump, expose the raw nerves and the open heart. Sex was _brilliant,_ not to put too fine a point on it, but sex with someone she loved was... There were no words.

Except, of course, for the words _not enough._ Last night's cuddling had been so comforting, and so needed. But tonight, Maura needed that fuller connection. That was normal, wasn't it? She ran down her mental list, then paused to wonder how many people needed a list of what was normal against which to measure themselves. Abandoning that line of thought in a hurry, she returned to the original. It _was_ normal to want sex, even to crave it. It was a part of what humans required to feel satisfied, to feel alive, that need to touch and assure oneself of the existence of desire and its answering echo from another. Why, then, should it sound like she was trying to justify it to herself? Hadn't she done this self-searching long ago, when she'd decided to become sexually active that first, nervous handful of times? She was a grown woman, and grown women had needs, and she was just deucedly lucky that the other grown woman she chose had chosen her, too. "Damn it, I want Jane. I _love_ sex with Jane," she muttered, reaching for the drawer.

"Well that's convenient. I'm pretty sure Jane's fond of it with you," quipped Jane as she came in the side door, jacket and shoes already divested.

Maura's brief startlement diverted her attention from the drawer, but subsided quickly and segued into comfort as Jane's hands, cool from the outside world, gently took hold of her shoulders and pulled her close for a better greeting. This involved a kiss on the neck, and Maura sighed, tilting her head to allow Jane better access. "Your hands are freezing," Maura pointed out, not actually complaining.

"Winter's getting a move on," Jane mumbled, her face still pressed to Maura's neck, though more for comfort than seduction at this point.

"Bad day?" Taking one of Jane's hands, Maura began to lightly massage it.

Jane wrapped her other arm around Maura's waist. "Not particularly. Just ended up a little philosophical with the guys." When Jane declined to continue on with her explanation, Maura switched to Jane's other hand, to a sigh of relief from the detective. "You even got dinner. I think you have the high score tonight."

"Spend the night?"

With another kiss to Maura's neck, Jane agreed. "We're waiting on leads, and following up tomorrow morning on our prime suspect, so I'm yours tonight." Maura wriggled out of Jane's arms to give her an arch look and Jane tuned just a little pink. "That wasn't what I meant, but I'm going to go with it." Pleased with that reaction, Maura went to plate dinner. They were going to need their energy. "Does it bother you that we're so different?"

Given that her hands were busy with plating (and dressing - even take-out needed garnishes, like little snippets of finely diced scallions, a sprinkle of sesame seeds, a drizzle of some kind of salty plum sauce), Maura's natural inclination to pontificate went unchecked. "There is a common expression which holds that opposites attract, but I've always felt that after the initial attraction phase, it's commonalities that sustain that attraction. We are very different, it's true, especially on the surface, when looking at us, as it were, on paper. Our formal education, incomes, ethnicities, some political sentiments, religious upbringing or lack thereof..."

"I get it," Jane started, a little miffed that it all had to actually be trotted out as if to demonstrate her original point, which was, at its base, insecurity.

"No, you don't," Maura smiled tolerantly. "I said, on the surface we're different. But beneath that, where the more important things lie, we're a lot the same. We're both people of integrity, committed to justice, and we're ethical." Momentarily she flashed, quite unbidden, onto a memory of admitting to Jane that she'd helped her ex-boyfriend Ian smuggle drugs out of the US. The drugs had been medications, and Ian had been taking them to villages that desperately needed them, but still, it was illegal, and she'd done it willingly. "Even when the law hasn't quite caught up to our ethics," she added.

"We both care deeply about the people who need the answers we can give them, and about the victims for whom we provide a voice. We both value family," Jane because she'd had such a strong one, Maura because she'd always felt just a little bit like a guest within her own, "and we're both very loyal. We have strong work ethics, and we both try to live up to our ideals... " Maura paused for breath, but it was readily apparent to the woman who knew her well that she was only revving up for another several minutes of expounding on the commonalities that would, as she'd phrased it, 'sustain their initial attraction' long past the point where that cardinal burst of it had spread out, diluting itself over their lives rather than being concentrated in the single point of a first kiss.

"I can't tell if that's a yes or a no, Maura," sighed Jane. "I think it's a no." She sat down at the table, clearly physically and mentally a little weary. "We were out at Dewey Park for a couple hours," began Jane, by way of explanation. "Have you seen how much college costs these days? I almost want to tell Ma that I'm not having kids because even you'd balk at spending that much for a job opportunity that probably won't even exist by the time they get out." Jane picked up a chopstick, not the cheap ones that came with the food, but a lovely metal one that matched Maura's silverware.

Twirling it, her eyes ran over the plates, the silverware and the chairs. Reflex kicked in. Jane's shoulder's hunched self consciously. "Or not. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore," Jane grumbled and put the chopstick down, haphazardly, instead of neatly arranging it like all its friends. That lasted mere seconds before Maura, bustling back and forth with dinner condiments and drinks, reached down and straightened the chopstick. Now, more than ever in her life, Jane hated the chopstick. "Why do you always have to do that?" she asked, purposefully returning _her_ chopsticks, damn it, to their previous askew formation.

Maura pulled back her hand as if she'd gotten an electric shock, and straightened her own, perfectly straight, chopsticks instead. _Because I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. Not the kind that everyone claims to have, when really they just like to nitpick other people, but the kind that an actual doctor diagnosed when I was three. The kind that wakes me up at night and makes me go straighten the shoes in my off-season closet. The kind that means I know the exact number of Q-tips left in the container in the medicine cabinet. The kind that sent me outside with the hand-vac to tidy stray leaves off the porch. The_ back _porch. Because I need order, and I need regularity, and I need the napkins ironed before I fold them, and I need to pluck the stray hair from your collar even though it's not mine and won't alert anyone to the secrecy of our existence together. Because my love for you isn't part of what I structured into my life, but you're so important to me that I welcome your disorder and the rearranging I've done with my five-year and twenty-year plans and I like the new plans better, but I really do need the little things to stay in their places because the big things are now half yours to control and you are messy - gloriously messy, and I love that in you, and I love that every neat little compartment of my life has something of you in it now, and I love that we don't fit my categories or labels or the Dewey Decimal System in which I have filed every other relationship in my entire history and future, but damn it, let me just set the table nicely because you deserve the best of my efforts, all the time, whether that means a prettily set table or a new item of lingerie or a massage for your hands when my feet are sore, and because I need order, and would you just leave the damned thing!_

Maura took a long breath, meant to be calming, but shaky instead, and making her diaphragm, pectoralis major and minor, and serratus anterior muscles tighten just that little bit more. "Sorry. Habit," she murmured, and went to get the soy sauce that each of them would doubtless want to add to their steamed rice. "Sesame broccoli beef, or General Tsao's chicken?"

The fact that Maura apologized only served to pick at the itchy scab in Jane's brain. It was frustrating. "Tsao's," she said gruffly. A heartbeat later, Jane added. "Please." Clearly it was an afterthought. "But you do, always, tidy up after me." Tossing one hand up in a sign of frustrated defeat, "I get it, it's your house." While Jane didn't intentionally add emphasis to the 'your' in her sentence, the weight of the conversation pulled that one, solitary word into an out of proportion starring role, grabbing Jane's current rant and barreling head first into a cataclysmic crash. "Your house, your rules, your style." The bitter words really did just fall out of Jane's mouth, cheerfully refusing to stop for a check at the gate of thought or reason. Unable to retract them, Jane let them stand while she sat down, forcefully.

Unable not to look exactly the way she felt, Maura's visage took on an aura of hurt. "Is that what you think? You think of my tidying as enforcing rules? I don't have rules. When have I told you any rules, beyond what's necessary to preserve the quality of the furniture or appliances? I don't have rules for you. You're not a child, and I'm not your nanny." Nor, apparently, was she a person who saw a mother as the primary rule-maker. "So, what don't you like about it?"

Jane just looked annoyed. "Your... style? I'm not a freaking thesaurus, Maura," she said pointedly, clearly implying which one of them was, in fact, was. _Is there a synonym for thesaurus?_ wondered Jane abruptly. _Maura would know._ And for some reason, a factoid that, earlier that day, would have made Jane laugh with delight only served to nag at her. "You like things a certain way, a _specific_ way. And it's great that you let me know when I don't happen to meet those exacting standards, but damn it, sometimes I like things certain ways too!"

"What do you want to be different?" Maura asked quietly, but in light of Jane's hair trigger, she was starting to work her way past hurt and into something else. She had not yet identified what the feeling was, but she knew that it was both unpleasant and compelling. "Tell me."

Had Jane not been sitting, she'd have been caught flatfooted. What did she want different? "I... " She trailed off, looking around at Maura's. "I don't -" Another stop and Jane growled in frustration. "It's not that," she finally said, speaking slower. Sure, now the words let her stop and process before speaking. Hell, now they were hiding. Finally, quietly but with no less frustration as before, Jane said "It's that there's no room for me here." Jane spread her hands out, and put them on the table, staring at them instead of Maura, or her odd decor. _Eclectic_ , she thought. "I don't fit."

"You have a point," Maura agreed, willing to put aside whatever that unpleasant feeling was for the moment. "That's why I cleared half my drawers and closet. I put all the off-season things in the first guest room. There's lots of room for your things now." No need to mention anything else, at the moment. Jane was not a swift mover. "What would it take for you to fit, or more to the point, for you to feel like this is your home as much as mine? Because that's how _I_ think of it."

"It's not my home, Maura," groaned Jane. "It's yours. Even the dog dishes are yours. You picked them out so they'd match Bass's!" They didn't actually match, but they looked 'right' together. Which wasn't the point, damn it. Nor was the fact that half of Maura's closet was pretty much the size of Jane's entire wardrobe. "Nothing here is _me_. Clothes, fine, but look around. Everything here is _you_. Furniture, dishes. We don't even eat out of the take out containers here!"

Puzzlement warred with incredulity. "You object to... what? To things that look well together, or do you just not like any of the things I chose to go with the house?" Not, Jane noted absently, to go with her personality or tastes. That was another telling moment; later, Jane might look back and wonder whether any of the decor - not the souvenirs, not the books, not the essential items, but the actual, functionless-but-for-beauty decor - actually reflected Maura any more than they reflected the architectural style of the house _._ "Or is it that you don't like the house? Or my taste? What exactly is the problem, Jane? Tell me what I can do to make it okay for you to be with me, _in_ my life."

"The things you chose to _go_ with the house," restated Jane, clearly. She looked up at Maura with her eyes, not moving her head much at all. "Your taste is great. Weird, but great. But it's not my tastes. It's like staying in a fancy hotel. Nothing's _me_. Nothing's Boston, or sports, or anything. And I don't have any _me_ space. It's all borrowed, or, or loaned." Even in her irritated state, Jane couldn't ignore some truths, and added, "Given." Quickly she followed up, "Which is great, but it's still all you. I mean, God, even 'my' part of the bathroom is you!"

"Like the empty toilet paper roll," Maura suggested. It was an attempt at a joke; Jane often responded well to humor as a tension diffuser. Alas, it was an epic failure today.

"Oh my _God_ ," snapped Jane, sounding disturbingly like her mother. "The damned toilet paper can shove itself up -" Thankfully Jane cut herself off. "God forbid I put the roll on backwards! It's a roll! It goes around! How can it have 'backwards,' woman!"

Maura's head tilted to one side. "Actually, I said empty, not backwards. Do I have to demonstrate the panties-around-ankles shuffle, or shall I just take it as read that you're not really in a mood to listen right now?" One hand held up. "Never mind. Luckily for you, I am in a mood to listen. I've heard what you have to say and I'll be taking it into consideration."

Few things in life were as infuriating as being in the mood of a knock down, drag out, shouting match with your partner, only to have her be the amazing, rational, calm person she always was. Which was probably why, when Maura occasionally broke down crying (like last night), it freaked Jane out. The problem was Jane was still in that angry, shouty, mood, and Maura clearly was past that and into processing. Hands closed into fists and Jane scowled. "Consideration." The acidity of the word dripped from her tongue.

"Of course," Maura replied, bewildered that her response had been met with such restrained, though acidic, venom. "Don't you want me to think about what you say?"

Whatever reply Jane might have made, or whatever further speechifying Maura was set to begin, they were mercifully interrupted by the voice of David Duchovny as Fox Mulder, forcefully announcing, "FBI, Freeze!" One second later, it happened again. And again, until, swearing with unuttered grievances, she snatched the phone out of the jacket pocket she'd hung by the door, which fell to the floor, and she just left it there to answer gruffly, "Rizzoli, and this better be good."

Maura's lips pursed as she watched the jacket fall. Though it took every ounce of self-control she possessed, she let it lie there on the floor, and as Jane paced back and forth, barking the occasional, "Yeah," the smaller woman turned purposefully away from the blazer and started putting the dinner things that weren't already on plates into plastic refrigerator containers. Jane was right, after all. She detested little cardboard take-away boxes.

On a good day, Jane catching sight of Maura using her own tupperware instead of the cardboard would be cause for an eyeroll and a kiss. On a bad day, just the eyeroll. Today it didn't even manage a mention. "Okay, hang on," Jane said into her phone, and pressed the mute button. "I need to take this."

Without looking over, Maura replied perfunctorily, "So take the call." Jane didn't reply right away, piquing Maura's curiosity, and she looked up. "What's wrong now?"

"I can't take it here." The words stung, possibly more than intended. Jane hesitated a moment before squatting to rummage in her jacket pockets. "I can't take the _call_ here," she clarified, fishing her car keys out of a pocket. "So I'm going somewhere else." Torn between snapping back to their argument, or offering some reassurance, Jane finally settled on a middle ground. She left her shoes and jacket inside and said, "It might be a while." Then she went out to Maura's driveway and locked herself in her own car.

Maura sighed as she sat down to eat her own dinner, cold by now, and unappetizing. She didn't even finish half of it before putting it away, and started to put away Jane's as well. Then she thought better of it and put it in the oven to warm... and took it right back out to set precisely back where she'd set it earlier. "Fine, no tidying," she murmured as she left the plate, left the jacket on the floor, left Jane's unworn shoes right by the door, one tipped over on its side.

Even with all that done, only twenty minutes had passed. Well, nineteen. Maura knew. She'd checked the clock. A stray thought occurred to her, and she walked to the two guest rooms at back of the house, grabbing a notebook and pen on the way from her office. Her shorthand was one of the few no one at the station had ever seen, and gave people fits when they tried to decipher it. It was a boustrophedonic code based on six languages, four alphabets, a variety of symbols mathematical and chemical, and a hieroglyphic, designed in her school days as a way to keep up with the fastest of lecturers and leave her time to record nonverbal data as well. It could, almost, keep up with Maura's actual thought processes, when she was only focusing on one stream of thought at a time. Thus, when she left the guest rooms over an hour later (one hour, sixteen minutes, but who was counting besides herself?), she had not one or two pages of notes, but eight, plus schematic drawings on three more.

And still no Jane.

* * *

It was freezing in her car. _I should have used Maura's car,_ sighed Jane. Then again, Maura's car had the same problem as Maura's office, or spare room. It was all Maura's. She wanted to be back inside with Maura, talking about what they'd been fighting about.

"Rizzoli, are you paying attention?" asked the US Marshall on the phone.

She winced. "Yeah, sorry. Which week?" The Marshall repeated the week and Jane felt her stomach drop like she was on a roller coaster. "Oh, no. Hell no. I can't that week." Bad enough she was going to have to start bailing on Boston for a week at a time, but not on her anniversary with Maura. Provided that was still going to happen after shoving both really cold feet in her mouth two hours ago.

"Why? You got a hot date?" grumbled another voice on the line and Jane swallowed her gag reflex.

Jane counted to ten. Then she did it again. "Actually, yes."

"You're going to have to suck this one up, Rizzoli. Judge wants to be done by Thanksgiving." The other people on the line expressed doubts as to that happening anyway. "If we're lucky, we'll be done by Christmas on this one, but the witness is stalling."

Slumping as much as she could in her car, Jane grimaced. "Fine. Fine. Everything's fine," snarled Jane. "We done? I'd kind of like to get back to my _date_." That brought a round of laughter. _See if I care. Yes, Jane Rizzoli has a hot date she wants to spend time with._

One particular man on the other end of the phone waited till the others were silent, confirming they were done for the night. "Date, huh. Is this the 'someone else' you mentioned?"

It was for the best that Jane's gun was already locked away in the gun vault in her nightstand at Maura's, or she'd be motivated to shoot something. "No. Goodnight, Dean," she added, snappily, and slapped her phone off.

After she dropped the phone on the passenger seat, Jane swore. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!" With each repetition, she smacked her open palm on the steering wheel. The pain focused her anger a little, and Jane stopped. "I hate this," she sighed, and folded her arms on the wheel, using them to pillow her head.

 _It would be so much easier if I could tell her_ , Jane thought. She couldn't bring herself to look back at Maura's house, since there was a good chance the doctor was watching her from the window. It had been so easy, the last six months, not having to keep anything from her. The problems with the FBI had kept themselves occupied, with nothing more needed than a trip to the local offices.

You couldn't outrun your past, though, as Jane was being rudely reminded. It was bad enough that they were working an arson (in a sideways sort of way) and Maura wasn't sleeping well. _I know what you're thinking_ , sighed Jane, mentally. _I don't want to think about it either, but I can't say anything. If I tell her, I lose her forever._ Jane thought about bashing her forehead against the wheel a couple times, but Maura wouldn't appreciate that.

Could Jane have her cake and eat it too? By withholding information from Maura, she was protecting her, but also keeping her close to Jane. _I don't want to have to try living without her._ But at the same time, a thought of suicide never crossed Jane's mind. _I just want to keep her safe, and keep her with me. Is that too much to ask?_

For the first time in years, Jane wanted to get on her knees and pray. That was never a good sign. She reached over blindly, groping for her phone. Ever since that case in September, she'd left the number on her phone. What was she going to say? _I have a secret I can't tell anyone, even Maura, and I'm freaking out._

Calling Daniel Brophy would be inappropriate. Jane pressed the back of her head to the window of the car. She should go back inside. _Maybe I'll just stay out here and sleep in the car._ Except. Except Daniel, damn it, had a point. Maura or the job. _Maura, a thousand times Maura._ Jane opened the car door and winced. The rain had frozen, and it was a slippery, icy, barefoot walk back to the house.

"You're an idiot," Maura said, opening the door, having clearly sat and waited until Jane tripped the motion light. She held out a towel. "Dry your feet."

"Glad we've got that covered," muttered Jane, taking the towel and roughly drying her feet. "Give me a minute, I'll grab my stuff."

Maura frowned. "Do you have to go for work?"

"Whu- I, no, no I don't."

"Then _stop_ being an idiot. Your feet are freezing. Sit on the couch, and I'll get you a hot water bottle."

Under Maura's firm direction, Jane slunk to the couch where she found herself the surprised recipient of a warm water bottle for her feet and a massage for her hands. "I thought you were mad at me," admitted Jane, closing her eyes and relaxing.

"Oh, I am," Maura promised. "But a fight doesn't ruin a friendship. Or a relationship." Her hands were gentle on Jane's, applying pressure in the right places to draw tension out of Jane's entire body. "I wish you could tell me what was going on."

"I wish I could too," lamented Jane. Her hands twitched and Jane took hold of Maura's fingers, stilling them. "Maur, I really, really, wish I could tell you about this, like you don't know. But... it's a legal thing. I can't tell Korsak or Frost. Hell, Cavanaugh only knows because he had to sign off on it. But especially, I can't tell you. Not Dr. Isles, and sure as hell not my girlfriend."

Maura looked at their joined hands. "Am I your girlfriend?" Her voice was soft and small, as if Maura was making herself less of a person for Jane in this moment.

Kicking the hot water bottle off her feet, Jane rearranged herself to kiss Maura's cheek. "Yes. Yes, you are." She squeezed Maura's fingers gently. "I'm trying, I really am. And I know it's unfair to ask you to wait forever." Before Maura could speak, Jane plowed on. "I really want to promise you that I'm gonna do it, that I'll go up to Ma, or Korsak, or Frankie and tell them that, hey, I'm dating Maura! Except every time I try, it's like my tongue dies."

Maura kept looking at their hands. "I don't want you... I wish it weren't about you coming out because of me." Jane followed her gaze, silently. Understanding fell between one breath and the next. "You haven't come out to anyone have you?" Shaking her head, Jane looked only at their joined hands. Maura straightened, "Jane Rizzoli, have you ever even asked _anyone_ out?"

Shoulders hunched and Jane shook her head again. "Well, I mean, I asked _you_ out. Kind of." She peered up at Maura's disagreeing gaze. "Hey, I said the word date first!"

"How have you never asked anyone out, Jane?" Maura asked, flabbergasted and amused.

Jane let go of Maura's hands and flopped back on the couch. "I just haven't," she exhaled and pulled her legs up. Jane was demonstrating the classic signs of self-protection, folding up on herself. Maura frowned trying to understand why Jane felt defensive. She was fearful.

"Jane," Maura said gently, putting on hand on Jane's leg. "I said yes." Jane muttered something, and Maura leaned, resting her weight against Jane's legs. Maura had hundreds of words, all of which she could use to explain why Jane was uncomfortable asking people out. While she couldn't always understand why people felt the way she did, Jane's fears were very easy to comprehend. To start with, Jane was a beautiful woman, whether she noticed it or accepted it or not. Other people certainly saw it, which meant that, like Maura, Jane seldom had to go to any special effort. Other people would do that for her, ask _her_ out. It tended to make a person a little bit lazy, a little bit complacent. One could rest assured that one would get a date, if one went out where one could interact with other people (and, if one were Jane Rizzoli, if one could refrain from snapping at a person trying to work up the courage to ask).

Maura had done it, more than once, but even at the time she knew it wasn't because nothing would get done if she didn't. It was because, on those occasions, _she_ wanted to take control, wanted to be in charge. It was much easier to assert one's individuality and own one's sexuality when one made it happen rather than waiting passively. But Jane had only just learned of an important aspect to her own possibilities, which spoke of never having _had_ to take charge of it before. It had to be scary, to go first, to expose one's own wishes for that first time.

None of which was relevant at the moment, but Maura filed it away for intellectual and emotional learning and musing later.

"I'm proud that you asked," she returned to the subject, "and every day I'm proud that you're with me. I'll be proud when you feel like taking another step out, too. But I don't want you to take another step because of me. I want you to come out, when and if you do, because you feel like doing it. In your own time, in your own way, and when you're feeling like you're ready to take that risk. Because it is a risk. It really is, and I'm fully cognizant of everything it could mean for you."

Maura steadied herself with a long breath, something she'd done a little too often lately for her own liking. "I don't like fighting with you. I don't like being at odds with you. I don't like knowing that you can't even be in the house with me sometimes. What I can do about that over the long term, I'm not sure, but I want to figure it out with you. Okay? But right now, I want to know what I can do _tonight_ that will make this argument end for now, at least, and let you enjoy your dinner and then come to bed with me."

"I'm not hungry," muttered Jane, gently running her fingers through Maura's hair. Her stomach, however, disagreed with the statement. Loudly. "Traitor." Jane looked down at her own stomach, which growled again. "Okay, I am hungry. I'm not in the mood for cold Chinese food, and I don't want to cook," she admitted.

The house being Maura's meant there was actually more than just take-out and a jug of milk in the refrigerator. "I have a microwave," she suggested. "Let me heat this back up." Once this was done, the two of them sat, and Jane ate. Maura had already eaten, but she kept Jane company by drinking a glass of water. Small talk, chiefly about work or Jane's family - but _not_ the dangerous subject of coming out to them - reestablished their relationship, along with once in a while a hand to a forearm or a little lean in one another's direction.

When it felt a bit safer to do so, Maura mentioned, "You've been getting these calls for a while now. I know you don't want me to ask what's going on, and I won't... I'll try to remember not to press you for information. But I think it actually would have saved us both some tension if you'd mentioned before tonight that you couldn't be here for _legal_ reasons."

"Well, why did you think?" Jane asked, as if that had been obvious from the start. "What, you thought I just couldn't stand to be near you or something?"

Silence.

"Oh, crap, you did."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes," Maura answered. "I thought my presence was angering, or annoying, or distracting, or just..."

Jane reached over and put one finger on Maura's lips, shushing her for a moment. "Yes, you distract the hell out of me sometimes, but I think the fact that I can work in the same office and not wander off into happy bedroom daydream land _all_ the time means I know how to work with you there." The smile that tugged at Jane's lips was impossible to deny, as was the delight in her eyes. "I mean, hello, have you seen how you dress?"

Basking in the appreciative look of adoration from Jane's eyes, Maura returned a small, some might call it demure, smile. "Next time, just tell me."

With a Rizzoli style stabbing of her food, Jane agreed to that. "It's a stupid legal thing. I got stuck as the BPD contact for a joint task force, blah blah blah. I hate it, and I had to sign a million miles of paperwork and put up with -" It took all but biting her tongue to save herself from that train wreck. _Do not mention Gabriel Dean, Rizzoli!_ she mentally shouted. That would destroy any possibility of calmness tonight. Neither woman had the ability to be polite about him, these days. "Anyway. Uh, you didn't plan anything for our anniversary yet, did you?"

Maura's wince gave it away even before she found any words that would have made it easier going down. "Just a little... it's... I didn't book anything," she finally summoned. That meant there were no hotel reservations, no travel that was beyond where they could get in a car. "We can... we can reschedule. It's just a day. You know, the Gregorian calendar in use today is just one of several, and that date is only our anniversary on one of those calendars. The Julian calendar would have a different date, and the Hebrew, Muslim, Hindu, and various other calendars don't even have the same months, let alone the same dates within those months, because they reckoned years differently. The mathematics are fascinating. I could explain -" Jane's half-amused, half-glazed expression caught her up short, and she let herself chuckle. "Or I could just say that it's okay, and we can reschedule whenever you like."

"The - They want to be done before the holidays. Clearly we should have started going out in a more convenient time." Jane put her chopsticks down and stretched her arms up and over her head, yawning. "I'd _like_ to spend our anniversary in bed, with you, in some location without cellphone reception, with Ma thinking we're in Hawaii. But what's the quote? 'Day' is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles?" She grinned at Maura. "And I think since _you_ have all the points today, you decide if I'm doing dishes and then showering, or showering while you put the dishes away."

Maura solved both problems by getting up and putting the used plate in the dishwasher, then smiling. "I have another idea," she suggested with a smile. Harmony had been restored, not quite perfectly, but well enough to build on again. "How about we both shower? It'll save time."

The grin on Jane's face as all the answer Maura needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The weird shorthand Maura uses was lifted from Laurie R. King's character Mary Russell, star of her Russell/Holmes series. Yes, that Holmes. Which is, in its own way, fanfic anyway, so we hope she's not upset that we did this without permission. It's her own fault for putting those perfect words out there where just anyone could benefit from them. Pick up "The Beekeeper's Apprentice" if you've never read her before.
> 
> Reviews are better than Dean. You don't like Dean, do you? No reviews and we bring him back.


	7. We All Hang Separately

Frankie Rizzoli swaggered back to the car, where Frost was waiting for him to show what he'd learned, both from the canvass and from his lessons as a baby detective. Frost spared a moment to realize that that wasn't just the swagger of a guy, it was the swagger of his partner. Maybe it wasn't just Jane, maybe it was a family trait. Their mother didn't do it; maybe Frank, Senior had been a cocky guy. Or maybe it was just what happened with attractive, confident people who knew they'd better look like they meant business all the time. "What'd you get?" he asked as the younger Rizzoli climbed back into the car.

"Nobody's in the house," Frankie answered, "no lights on or anything. Neighbor on the left says he complains about her dog all the time, shovels his walk regularly, listens to crappy music when he barbecues, but he invites her and her husband over for drinks once in a while and seems kind of okay. Also," he added as Frost was about to dismiss the exercise as having been futile, "Greg Bayless has been out of work for over a year, but his wife's got a job. Jennifer Bayless works for Blake Sanden."

Frost blinked a few times. "Home run, my man," he told Frankie, raising a fist. "You win, coffee's on me." Knuckles tapped, Frankie got back into the car.

As Frankie slid into the passenger seat, he grinned. "Gets even better. Car's in Greg's name, but it's Jennifer who bought it. Neighbor says it was in the driveway with a bow on it for his birthday. Big party, which _she_ thought was funny, since they'd been single income for a while."

"How big are we talking?" wondered Frost, pulling out of the driveway and heading back to the station.

"She said... " Frankie flipped his notebook open, "Bigger than the IPO party at the dot-com she used to work at. Can we stop at the Boston Common coffee shop? I want to pick up something for Janie and Maura too."

As he turned down the road, Frost contemplated that carefully before asking. "What's up with them?"

"Them who?"

"Jane and Maura." The silence from the other side of the car was surprising, and Frost looked over at Frankie. "What?" Frankie was frowning and looking nervous. "Forget it, forget I asked," sighed Frost and he concentrated on driving.

Frankie fiddled with his notebook a little. "Something happened after Jane shot Doyle," he finally said. Apparently Jane had never told Frankie, her own brother, about Maura's relationship with Doyle. "They were all pissed off at each other for months, no more weird girl sleepovers. Right? Then all of the sudden, Ma says Janie's there all night, and it's like they're kind of normal. Huggy, touchy, but none of that bantering." Exhaling loudly, Frankie snapped the notebook closed. "Something happened. I don't know what, but now they're all weird."

That just confirmed the oddness going on that Frost had seen too. Of course, he was pretty certain the women had been fighting over Jane shooting and killing Maura's biological father. That would pretty much wreck any friendship. The fact that, somehow, they'd come back from that at all spoke volumes for their friendship. But oddly enough that wasn't what Barry had in mind. "I was thinking about when Jane keeps leaving town, actually." Barry was pleased to see that Frankie was just as flummoxed about that as he was.

"Beats me. She drops of Joe with me, or Ma, and says not to call her." Frankie tapped his fingers on the dashboard, clearly nervous. "You think she and that Dean guy... ?"

That might explain why Maura was grumpy. Being dumped so your best friend could get laid was annoying, as Barry remembered from school. Wingman was a shitty position. "I don't think so. She was pretty pissed at him before he left town." A pause and Barry asked a question he was pretty sure he didn't want the answer to. "Why do you think... ?"

Apparently Frankie didn't like the answer either. "I heard her talking to him on the phone." At Barry's raised eyebrows, he quickly added, "I went by her place! I used Ma's key to drop off some food."

They drove a couple blocks in silence. _I have to ask. I don't want to ask. No, I do want to ask, I don't have to ask._ Barry ran through multiple variations of the question in his head, before coming up with the most obvious. "What'd she say?" He didn't like Dean. The guy was weird enough the first time, and now he looked like he'd spent his 'tour' in Afghanistan drinking swill and chain smoking.

"She said that he should shut up, and either get her a hotel room, or she'd pay for one." After a moment, Frankie went on. "She didn't sound real happy about it. And then she saw me and shouted at me."

That could go either way. Mad because Frankie interrupted a call with her man, or mad because her man was an inconsiderate ass. Or a bad date. Either way, not a road Barry Frost needed to travel. Jane's personal life was her own damn business, and if she wanted to hang out with Maura and take run-away weekends with a skeezy feebie, that was on her. "Boston Common Coffee. Right. What're we getting?" asked Barry, simply changing the topic.

Frankie looked relieved. "Janie likes that _Saltalamacchia_ coffee. Salted caramel whatever it is." Coffee was a much safer topic.

* * *

Old jeans, a comfortable "Property of Boston Police Department" T-shirt of Jane's that had seen better days, sneakers, and a cute little kerchief around her hair: these were Maura Isles's cleaning clothes, at least when she wasn't trying to impress anyone. She could wash the car in these, scrub bathtubs and showers, move appliances and get grime out from behind them, venture to the basement and sweep a broom through all the cobwebs (as if she'd ever let cobwebs happen in the first place).

She could also, as was happening at the moment, be doing what looked an awful lot like packing. She only had one box, but kept filling it up with little things here and there, removing them from one of her two guest rooms, and putting them away in other parts of the house. Once in a while, she stopped, consulted the eight pages of lists she'd made just the previous night (plus three of schematics), and adjusted either what she was removing, or where she was taking it.

As she worked, the sound of Robert Schumann's "Du Meine Seele (You, My Soul)" came pouring out of her phone, covering up Jason Mraz's "Lucky" which she had playing on the household speakers on nonstop repeat. Maura set down the box of little knickknacks she was holding, pressed pause on the CD player, and answered. "Isles." One could never quite tell when Jane was on speaker phone, and if she was, a greeting of _Hey, sexy lady_ , while accurate, would not be a good idea.

"Settle a bet for us," Jane said immediately, letting her know that, indeed, this was one of those times when they had listeners. Good thing she hadn't answered the phone with her first inclination. It would have given Jane fits.

"Hi, Jane. Hi... Barry? Vince? Whom do you have?"

Korsak's voice came loud and clear; he must have been standing right nearby. "It's me, Doc. So, Rizzoli and I have a bet going. Winner buys beers when we close up this case. What do you think about this situation," he began. What followed was a tale told by himself and Jane, alternating as easily as an old married couple, as Maura resumed working while listening. An older gentleman (Maura tried to ascertain age, but was assured that it was unimportant) with several employees (the nature of the work also was asserted to be unimportant), and one of the women there gets paid substantially more than everyone else who's doing the same job she's doing, or at least, work of the same level of status, complexity, difficulty, and time commitment.

"Does she do the job better than anyone else?" Maura asked first, but was informed that, while the woman was good at her work, she wasn't especially stellar. "Has she been in the job longer than anyone else?" Again, no: middle of the road. "Did she create the position? Does she train others to do it, too? Does she have additional responsibilities, beyond what the job strictly entails?"

No, no, and two voices exploding, "That's what we're getting at." "Bingo!"

"Would this be Blake Sanden and Jennifer Bayless?" Maura finally asked, huffing a little as she carried an armful of guest bedroom linens to the common linen closet instead. Fortunately, all beds in the house were the same size, so theoretically the sheets could be swapped.

A pause ensued, during which she smiled to think of Jane and Korsak looking at one another, irritated that she had spoiled the 'unbiased view' by actually figuring out who the individuals were. No, wait, that would be a concern _she_ would have. They wouldn't. Maura sighed, "You know I don't like to guess."

"Speculate," Vince suggested.

"How is that better?"

Jane's idea was more palatable. "Hypothesize, Maura. You're a scientist. Give me a hypothesis, and I'll figure out how to test it."

Given those terms, Maura agreed, "if I were a person who likes to bet, and if I could confirm my hypothesis by sniffing to see if they use the same soap when showering, or exhibit behavioral markers indicating some degree of physical comfort or familiarity, I would be willing to consider, among other possibilities, the idea that her increased pay _might_ either be a gift to a lover, a bribe for silence on some legal or ethical matter, or actual remuneration for services rendered. The nature of the relationship would still be open to debate, but some sexual relationship... has a strong _possibility_ of existing."

Jane gruffly covered her fond chuckle by hoarsely demanding, "Jesus, Maura, are you Herman Melville? Because people who don't get paid by the word usually just say something like, yeah, they're probably sleeping together."

Maura laughed and rang off, mentally added a successful needling to her daily total. That total was small, given that it was her day off but not Jane's, but breakfast conversation had been fruitful, as had the fact that she'd replaced Jane's cheap facial wash, which would remove dirt but not do much more for her beautiful face, with something that would cleanse, exfoliate, and moisturize, all in one. Jane claimed it made her smell like a damned florist's shop, even though the chief olfactory notes were citrus and almond, which were fruity and nutty, not floral. Bonus: She'd made Jane admit familiarity with a classic American author.

Point leader two days running.

* * *

Inspiration was a funny thing. It was elusive as all hell when one was actively hunting it or watching for it. Ignoring it also made it elusive. But if one did that active hunting and watching and waiting, then left it alone for a while, it was like a woman who was out of your league, but who agreed to one date, and thereupon wined, dined, then left at the doorstep without a kiss: suddenly she, or rather _it_ , sought _you._ Sitting up in the bullpen, talking to Jane and Frost, Vince was not aware of its approach, but suddenly felt its rapid strike.

They'd been talking about the Bayless husband and wife. It was a given that the wife was the dirty mistress, which was just one too many connections. "Greg Bayless has got a truck that matches the marks on the body and the tire tracks at the house, which belongs to Blake Sanden, who employees Greg's wife, Jennifer, who's paid out of proportion with her job." Jane exhaled, as if the run on sentence was tiring. "Twenty says Sanden shops at Brooks Brothers."

"Sucker bet," Frost snorted and typed on his computer. "He's a hit for the suit, Korsak, nice job on the warrant."

Jane slapped her desk, "Okay, where was _he_ the night of the fire? Not before the fire, but _after_. Like... an hour. And I want to know what other empty houses he owns." Jane was filled with energy and Korsak watched her leap around to Frost's desk to pull up information.

The two were bouncing, clearly on a roll, and Vince watched them. A cop trusted his (or her) gut and followed instinct. Dr. Isles told him something long and drawn out once, about how it was really his brain being that smart, but honestly he hadn't paid attention then. Dr. Isles was hot, and creepy-smart. Emphasis on hot. He was listening, but not really for meaning, at the time.

She looked all soft and pretty, well groomed, fastidious. Just like a cat; and like the smaller varieties of felines, she too could be surprisingly sharp if people overstepped what she thought of as the appropriate boundaries. She'd threatened to assign Dr. Pike to the nether regions of hell, or something like that, for... what was it? rearranging her autopsy tools? And to hear Jane tell it, the Doc had smacked Paddy Doyle and his henchmen on their noses a few times too, for kidnapping her just to hold a conversation that one time. Now even the guys who tied her up when they came by said _yes ma'am_ when talking to her, because althought they had a job to do, they seemed to recognize their place in the order of things.

But, though her claws were sharp, she seemed to use them mostly for kneading purposes. Figuratively speaking, of course. Maura Isles had leaped into the collective lap of the Boston PD, made herself a home, massaged her way into everyone's good graces despite her freakishly high intelligence and the fashion sense that fit in at the precinct about as well as tits and high heels on a shark, and now was comfortably purring away like it was the most comfortable place in the world. Sure, there were things that made her skittish, and there were things she did that some people didn't really understand, but sure enough, she had wiggled in and claimed her position at BPD, and within the hearts of her select few chosen ones, as her very own, and then looked pleased that their lives had changed to accommodate her. Yep, just like a cat.

Cat.

_Cat._

"I gotta go!" he jumped up, leaving his coat behind, and ran out the door. As he hit the stairs, skipping the elevator entirely, he heard Frost ask what was wrong, and Jane profess not to care at the moment.

Vince all but skipped into the garage. Unlike Jane, he never risked towing and always parked in the snow-free safety of the garage. Also unlike Jane, his car was crammed with stuff he _might_ need here and there. Like the two items he was looking for today. Armed with the brilliant shining clarity in his head, Vince hustled back up to his destination. _I gotta thank Janie for telling me to use the StairMaster,_ he noted, as he was hardly out of breath.

* * *

"What's wrong, Vince?" asked a startled Angela, as he burst in. "And is that a cat carrier?"

Without asking, Vince scooted behind the counter. The one, lonely uniformed officer, sitting in the room stared at them. Then, without a word, got up and left. "It's a pet carrier, I use it for Clouseau."

"Who's Clouseau?"

"My dog." Currently his only dog, but that was a conversation for later. No permission was requested or granted as Vince went into the pantry and got on his knees. "I think I know what you've got," he explained as he opened the carrier. Carefully he wedged it in place. "See, it can't be scared of people, or it'd be freaking out all the time."

After flipping the sign to 'Back in 15 minutes,' Angela followed Vince. "You mean the... it's still in here?" She freaked a little bit.

"I think so. It's warm here, see, warmer than the evidence room." At one point, Vince had a cat he kept in evidence. Technically the cat _was_ evidence, but it had still been illegal to keep the cat down there. Jane knew, but she'd never told anyone. When the cat had gone missing one day, Vince had panicked, but after discreet investigations, found nothing. Cats run away, after all.

He cracked open his second surprise item. "Is that tuna?" wondered Angela.

Vince grinned. "Cat food." He clucked with his tongue and waited, putting the food into the carrier. Angela made a disparaging comment about Vince and gambling, but he knew, he just knew, he was right. "Just be quiet a minute, Angela, please." She huffed, but was silent.

A faint sound was his proof. Vince held his breath as the furry face of a hungry cat poked out from behind a bag. The cat eyed him suspiciously but did not run. This wasn't a feral cat, this was a somewhat domesticated, if hungry, cat. She even paused to sniff at him before creeping towards the cage. Oh yes, she knew what the box was for. Finally she gave in to hunger and went into the box.

Vince calmly reached over and closed the door. "One wild animal, milady," he beamed at Angela.

"You're like the cat whisperer." They both squatted by the cat in the cage, who was way too excited about eating the food. In the stunned silence was when they heard the tiniest little meep ever. The cat in the box heard it too and started howling. "What is it? What's wrong? Is it a rat?"

It couldn't be... Vince pushed the box towards Angela, "Hold that still, she's gonna start tossing."

Both of Angela's hands went on the carrier, holding it down. "She? It's a girl?"

Vince stretched his frame out and moved some sacks. The more he moved, the more the cat howled at him. Another box, another bag, and finally, when he moved one battered box of pudding mix, there came more meeps. "It's not just a girl cat, it's a mama." Very carefully, Vince pulled the box of three tiny kittens out. It was, really, a pretty clean box given the circumstances. "Angela, can you get me another box and some towels for these guys?"

"Are you sure? Mama's pretty mad." The mama cat was hissing, and Vince pushed the boxes together, which turned the complaints to a dull roar.

Vince nodded, "We need a cleaner box for starters. Then I gotta figure out where to take these guys."

Angela looked enlightened. "I bet Maura'd love them!" They both stopped, thinking about the chief medical examiner, her perfect house, her tortoise, and the frequent visitation of Joe Friday. "Then again, maybe not." Angela bustled off to find a milk crate and lined it with small towels and such. "I thought if you touched the babies, the mama would stop taking care of them because they didn't smell right."

"Urban myth," said Vince, firmly. "They just groom the heck out of the little guys." However Vince grabbed two gloves from the box used by all food handlers and picked up each squirming fuzzball, checked it out for health issues (and gender) and put it in the more comfortable box. "Two boys, one girl, they look healthy, but need some food." The mother cat snapped at Korsak from her cage as this went on. "Hey, I bet she's thirsty too," he added, and Angela brought him a paper cup, trimmed for a cat.

The water hushed the Mama cat up. "Pudding Mix is a noisy cat," opined Angela, foisting a name on the poor cat. It was probably better than 'Kate Beckett,' the next name on Vince's list.

"She wants her babies," Vince explained, playing Sgt. Obvious. Hefting the carrier, he carried it to a table. "Bring 'em over. You're gonna have to wash that whole back room out with bleach, you know."

Angela waved a hand. "I have to actually do inventory this weekend anyway." She carefully offered a finger for Pudding Mix to sniff, and was rewarded with a less annoyed growl. "You got more cat food?"

"I picked up a flat for mine this morning." Of course. He smiled at Angela, feeling a mix of virility and shyness, familiar to his teenager days. Just as he started to work up the courage to ask Angela if she might want to grab lunch, he found himself blocked by his boss and his partners.

Jane was walking in with Cavanaugh, talking about the case and how she wanted to bring in Jennifer Bayless. "Let Frost play bad cop. He could use the practice," suggested the station commander.

"Sure thing," agreed Jane. And they saw the boxes, the carrier, and a guilty looking Angela and Vince. "Uh, hey, Vince, that one of yours from home?" offered Jane, tossing him a line.

Cavanaugh looked down at the kittens. "I thought all yours were fixed, Vince."

"They are," admitted Vince. "This is... this is a new one. Pudding Mix." The moment the name fell out of his mouth, he winced. So did Jane. Vince Korsak would never name a cat something that stupid. Not that he'd ever tell Angela it was stupid.

Sadly, even Cavanaugh knew about Vince's naming convention. His eyes, detective eyes, looked over the entire cafe. "This is why you were closed yesterday? A stray cat?" Cavanaugh, on a strict diet for his ulcers, only ate his wife's cooking and therefore had no personal investment in the cafe. However, he knew as well as they did that an animal in a cafe - one which was not being cooked and eaten at the time - was an untenable situation. "That's a health code violation," he pointed out, underscoring the problem. Vince and Angela's greatest fears were coming to light: Cavanaugh would get the cafe shut down. He was, indeed, already reaching for his cellphone.

Janie, on the other hand, had to cover her mouth with one hand to stop from laughing. "Not if the health inspector doesn't come till after we clean up," Angela suggested, with a poor attempt at a winsome smile.

"Come on, Sean, nothing was hurt. Except the pudding mix. Can't you let it go? I mean, it's Rizzoli's mother."

The laughter dropped off Jane's face, and she glared at Vince. Her expression was easy to read: _Oh no, don't put me on this!_ Vince grinned at her, evilly. Angela turned her best mom-smile on Jane as well. Jane rolled her eyes, "Really?" This was asked of no one in particular, but now everyone was looking at Jane.

The fact that everyone was looking at Jane took some of the pressure off of Vince, and as a result, he had his second moment of inspiration that day. Later he would describe it as the clouds parting, the heavens opening, choirs of angels singing Good Boy, Vince. That was what happened when you lived right: when you ate your vegetables, said "yes ma'am" to old ladies, went to church and didn't snort at anything the priests and ministers were saying, and paid your taxes on time. "Hey, Sean," he said as a smile that couldn't be restrained appeared between mustache and goatee. "You've got kids, right? Coupla daughters?"

Lieutenant Cavanaugh looked suspicious as he nodded. "So?"

"Do _they_ like cats?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are like cute, cuddly, kittens. Everyone loves them.


	8. Bail Out

"That's a trophy wife," muttered Frost, looking at Jennifer Bayless applying her lipstick in the interrogation room.

"That's a lanka," Korsak corrected, causing both Jane and Frost to stare at him. "You don't know what a lanka is? Man you've never been married." After a moment, Korsak added, "Second Mrs. Korsak," and Jane _ohhhh_ ed silently in understanding.

On the other hand, Maura looked even more confused, "Lanka is another name for Sri Lanka, and it means 'respected island.' Are you trying to imply that your ex-wife was a respectable woman? Or perhaps that she was a fierce and mighty warrior?"

Both Jane and Korsak sighed. "A lanka," explained Korsak, "Is a kind of witchy woman. The sort that trick you into a relationship that seems all pure and laid back, but really they just want your soul. And they dress like that." He pointed through the window.

Jennifer Bayless was dressed like a slutty version of Maura. The clothes were tight, hugging her in all the right places, but in the totally wrong way. Jane and Frost tilted their heads identically, trying to size her up. "She'll fold like a cheap suit," decided Jane. "Frost, go for it."

The others waited while Frost went into the room.

There was no swagger in his step as Frost tossed a folder onto the table. "Mrs. Bayless," he said, grimly, sitting down. "You're facing multiple felony counts," Frost started, keeping the actual charges vague. "We have evidence your truck was used to transport a body from a crime scene, change his clothes, and dump the body in a public place."

Squirming a little in her seat, Jennifer Bayless looked away. "I didn't do anything," she said breathily. "You can ask my coworkers, we were at work late finishing up for year-end. It was an all-nighter."

Frost hmmed softly and opened the folder. "Your coworkers? The ones who said you left the all-nighter at 1am when your boyfriend stopped by?"

The woman started. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm married." She flashed the rather large ring.

"That's right. You're married to Greg Bayless, out of work since April 2010. A year and a half, how've you been holding up?"

Jennifer's eyes narrowed. "We make do. Tighten our belts."

Frost's grim smile extended and he tossed a print up over to Mrs. Bayless. "I didn't know shopping at high end stores counted as belt-tightening."

They both looked at the expenses from her credit card. "I'm helping the economy," she offered, her voice quavering.

Jane grinned and whispered. "Push it, Barry. Get her on the ropes."

"The economy," drawled Frost. "Right. The economy. You got your husband a brand new truck to help the economy?" That was right, assured Jennifer. "And you run errands for your boss, picking up all sorts of personal items, for the economy?" Again, she said this was so. "So, what errand were you running between one o'clock and two-twenty-five in the morning last Tuesday?"

Pursing her lips in an attempt to be coquettish, Jennifer hesitated. "He needed a clean suit."

"Your boss normally call you up in the middle of the night for clothes? He must pay you extra." Frost flipped through his pages. "Looks like he pays you a lot more for data entry than everyone else. You must be pretty impressive. How many words per minute do you average?" No answer. Frost let the line play out, asking more and more detailed questions about the job Jennifer supposedly did. No answer.

Behind the glass, Jane and Korsak were grinning ear to ear. Maura looked concerned. "Shouldn't she ask for a lawyer?" Both detectives shot her with a glare. "What? She has the right to an attorney."

"Hey, Dr. Death, I don't tell you how to do your job!" snapped Jane, her eyes sparkling with delight. Holding up her hands in defense, Maura said nothing further, but tacitly acknowledged Jane's points, won by having a reasonable excuse to call her by her faux-gang name, Dr. Death.

Frost, ignorant of all this chatter, scratches his chin. "Okay, so where did you take these clothes on Tuesday?" No answer, again, and Frost made a note. "You know your car has GPS." He slid a blue, folded, paper over to her. "This is a warrant for your car, including a download of said GPS data." Jennifer's eyes locked onto the paper, widening. "There's a bus, Mrs. Bayless. You can get on it, or it can run you over."

With one, perfectly manicured finger, Jennifer slid the warrant over to look at. "I didn't do anything wrong," she whispered.

"Your husband's truck is being paid for by electronic bill-pay from your personal checking account." Frost was cool as ice and Jennifer stared at the table top. "Care to revise your statement?"

Voice low and pained, Jennifer Bayless asked the obvious: "How many times can I do that?" Frost help up one finger. Instead of calling for a lawyer, Jennifer did exactly what Jane had predicted. She folded and gave an address. "It's another one of Blake's houses. He owns four for sale."

"There is a bus," Frost said, taking it all home at last, just like Mama taught him. Well, just like Rizzoli taught him. "You can either be on it, or under it." Sliding over a blank yellow pad and a pen, he added, "Write down everything."

* * *

One of the best parts of her job was storming the castle. Jane slapped the warrant down on the secretary's desk. "Blake Sanden," she said clearly, fighting to keep the smirk off her face.

The secretary looked at the paper, without opening it, and picked up the phone. "Mr. Sanden's in a conference with clients. Let me just call our lawyer -"

Korsak reached over and pressed the button in the cradle of the phone, hanging up for her. "Sure, call the lawyer. Where's Sanden?" Torn, the secretary pointed with her eyes to a room just past her. Always the fancy room right by the secretary. "Thanks, go make that call." And the detectives strode in.

If was the first time they'd had chance to meet Blake Sanden. Up until now, his relationship to the case was peripheral. The owner of a house where arson had occurred, with an airtight alibi. The boss of an incompetent data-entry monkey, paid above her grade. Neither of these things were against the law. Unethical, certainly, but giving your mistress a pay raise under the guise of 'services rendered above and beyond the call of job description' (and by the way, ew!) wasn't illegal.

The man was big. He wasn't fat, really, but solid. A barrel of man, standing tall and firm, like the anchor of a ship. Steadfast. _Jeeze, I bet Maura wouldn't have a thing to say against how he dresses,_ Jane thought, taking a moment to admire the man's attire. The suit was perfect. And looked in the same style as the ill-fitting one Marcus Jenkins had been dressed in.

"What's the meaning of all this?" he asked, pompously, his upper-crust Bostonian accent ringing off the walls.

"Blake Sanden, you're under arrest for obstruction of justice, illegal handling of human remains, and felony murder," announced Frost. They'd all agreed that since he broke Jennifer, the collar was rightly Barry's. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law." With expertise born of years of practice, Frost twisted Sanden's arm up behind him and cuffed him. "You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?"

Sanden spluttered, "This is preposterous! Call my lawyer," he shouted as they frog marched him out the door and past his secretary.

* * *

Dealing with the living was, perhaps, Maura's least favorite aspect of her job. It was stressful for her, especially in the realm of their emotions. She led the dead man's son, Lyle Jenkins, into the viewing gallery, along with Father Daniel Brophy. "Stand here," she suggested in what she hoped were suitably gentle tones. "I'll go into that room behind the glass, open the blinds, and you should be able to make the identification." She would not describe the autopsy process; the sheet would not be lowered enough to show the sewn Y-incision. She would not mention that she had shaved the dead man's face in order to enable recognition and to obtain trace evidence that might have been caught in what had been a substantial beard. Years of being a medical examiner had brought home the fact to her that no homeless, disenfranchised person's family wanted to really know how bad their relative's life had gotten without their help.

As she stepped away and into the room, Father Brophy placed a hand on the young man's shoulder. At twenty-three, he should not have had to identify his father's body. That should have happened when he was at least in middle age, if not older. "I'm here for you," said the distinguished-looking priest, and at his tone, Lyle Jenkins demonstrated the first evidence that he was not made of stone. Like so many bereaved who came through these doors, he was simply holding himself together. "Thanks."

The blinds opened. Maura now wore her scrub gown, and her hair in a ponytail. Father Brophy gave her a nod to indicate that he'd given minimal input to the son, assuring that he was in as good a frame of mind as a person could be for such a situation. Lyle didn't seem to even notice her. His eyes were fixed, as expected, upon the empty carcass that had once held, _"Daddy."_ It was a whisper. His posture stiffened even as his face crumpled. Everything that he had looked up to as a child, everything that he had wanted to get a chance to fix and make right, was gone.

Back on the other side of the glass, Father Brophy guided Marcus Jenkins's son into an unused room, there to offer solace; and also the subtle suggestion that in addition to the murder charges that would be brought, there were grounds for a civil case as well. Those responsible could be brought to fuller account for their actions.

Legal requirement satisfied, identification made, Maura closed the blinds and sighed. It never got easier, watching the hope leave a face. _I'm sorry. I wish it had been a stranger._

* * *

Even though he was in the interrogation room, with a lawyer, Blake Sanden kept arguing. "This is a violation of my civic rights! You can't arrest me in front of my clients on trumped up charges!"

Now it was Jane's turn to ride point. She threw pictures of the deceased Marcus Jenkins on the table, both pre and post autopsy. "Tell that to Marcus Jenkins."

The lawyer, a corporate fat cat, recoiled in horror. "Who's that?" asked Sanden, his tone imperious.

"The man who died in your house fire," Jane replied, her own voice dripping acid. As Sanden objected that no one had been found in the house, she plowed on. "No, not in the house. Marcus Jenkins managed to get out, but passed out from smoke inhalation. We already have Greg Bayless in custody, Mr. Sanden, and his wife. They rolled on you like a cheap suit, the irony of which you will shortly be able to admit you appreciate," she grinned.

"Want me to explain?" asked Jane, standing up with the folder in hand. "I have a CEO with a mistress, who has a house he can't sell. His mistress has a husband out of work, so she's willing to bend her wedding vows for some bad sex and a raise." Sanden spluttered again but Jane kept going, "Don't stop me unless I've got this wrong, Mr. Sanden. You did take Greg Bayless, and his wife, out to dinner. A private dinner at Mistral? We have that on your credit card, with triple your normal charges. Looks like dinner for three, wouldn't you say?"

Now Sanden's mouth snapped shut, and his lawyer delicately flipped the photos of Jenkins over. "Mr. Sanden will admit to the affair with Mrs. Bayless. But there's nothing illegal about an affair, nor in taking your mistress out to dinner." The lawyer made no attempt to explain why Greg Bayless had been in attendance.

Jane shook her head, "No, nothing illegal, though I'm pretty sure the SEC will have some questions to Anchor's hiring and pay practice when they see just how much extra Mrs. Bayless is paid compared to her coworkers. Oh, and they all said they knew about the affair. Something of an open secret, eh Blakey?"

As Sanden's face turned violet with fury, Jane fought a smile. "She can't talk to me like this," he erupted, shouting at his lawyer.

"Oh I can, Blake. Because I've got you on a red light camera, on the Concord Turnpike, at a quarter after midnight on Tuesday." Jane tossed a picture, clearly showing his license plate. "You should see the video. You're not a good driver, Mr. Sanden. Must be that chauffeur you use all the time."

 _I think Maura would call that face apoplectic with rage,_ Jane mused, as Sanden roared his wrath upon her. She waited till he stopped denigrating the police force before continuing. "GPS on your car, too, by the way, places you at one of your other 'for sale' houses. Same location as Mrs. Bayless. Want to explain that?"

While the lawyer insisted Sanden didn't have to say anything, the rage-filled CEO ignored him. "We were having an _affair_ ," he shouted.

"With her husband's knowledge?"

"He knew -" Sanden stopped, abruptly, as if caught.

"He was there too, Mr. Sanden. "GPS and phone triangulation confirm it. You know, you really should have had him leave the phone at home. I mean, you were smart enough to get him a burner for your conversations, but we can still trace locations, even if you're not making calls."

While playing Detective Exposition wasn't her favorite thing, nailing assholes to the wall really was. "According to the Baylesses, Greg was hired by _you_ to burn the house down. He says he broke the burglar alarm a month before the fire, which we confirmed with your security company. Then you waited until, finally, the homeless moved in to make a little bad-weather nest." She tossed a photo down, of the burnt house. "Greg's going down for arson. He admitted to setting it, but he ratted you out for the planning."

"That's his word against mine," said Sanden, firmly. "There's no evidence tying me to any of this."

Another photo went down. This time of a suit, devoid of any human body, remains or otherwise, it looked like any other suit. "Did you know your legs are uneven, Mr. Sanden?" Atop the picture of a suit, Jane dropped the record of his measurements from the tailor at Brooks Brothers. "Your mistress isn't that smart. Good in the sack, probably, but if she'd had the brains, she wouldn't have needed to sleep with you to keep her job. That's _your_ suit."

Sanden swallowed, once. "So she stole one of my suits, I'll fire her -"

That sentence didn't need completion. "Your suit had some trace evidence on it. Trace from the house where you and Greg Bayless washed and re-dressed a dead man. Trace we matched to the carpet fibers in your car. _Evidence_ tying you to the scene of a crime, Mr. Sanden." Jane placed both hands on the table. "The bus has already pulled out and run you over, Blakey. Now we just get to see how far we drag you."

Sharing a look with his lawyer, Blake folded his arms and said nothing. "My client is invoking his right not to self-incriminate," wheezed his lawyer.

* * *

As Jane retold the tale to Maura, her energy had her all but bouncing off the walls. "I didn't even have to get to the part about how Frankie tracked the tarp down to one they left at Dewey Park," she beamed taking a pull off her celebratory beer at Maura's, ignoring the fact that Maura had seen the entire proceedings from behind the observation mirror and didn't actually need to be informed. "The Bayless couple are going to do some time, but Blakey-poo's going away for a lot longer."

"Blakey-poo?" asked Maura, dry irony dripping from her voice as she took the seat right next to her lover, wine glass in hand. "Suddenly I'm even gladder we agreed not to use pet names."

"Pissed him off, good. He almost forgot what he hired the lawyer for."

"I saw."

Jane felt justifiably cocky, and sat leaning as far back as the couch would let her, as if actually making room for a big, satisfied belly filled with the guilty party. She'd definitely eaten that guy for lunch. "When he found out his little mistress rolled on him, he turned purple."

"I saw."

"Yeah, Maura," Jane agreed, "but he started sweating and everything. It was great. He was -"

"Jane," Maura repeated as she started to chuckle. "I saw. You were brilliant. You had him by the... What is it?"

"Short and curlies."

"Those. And what a disgusting phrase, thank you." But she chuckled as she said it; she didn't mean it. Oh, it was disgusting, all right, but for some reason, Jane being disgusting - or, rather, calling attention to a perp's disgustingness - was kind of funny. She set down her wine glass. "You know, this calls for more than a celebratory beer." She stood, held out her hand until Jane surrendered her own bottle, then held out both hands until Jane took them. "Come on. Come with me."

Jane was not a great fool, and when her sexy girlfriend got that twinkly little smile on, she knew to come a-runnin'. "Ooh. Did you buy something new?" she asked, half nervous and more than half willing to just roll with it. Maura made excellent purchases, especially the ones she made online that came mailed in plain brown wrappers.

"... Yes," Maura said with a wink, "but that's not where we're going." Sure enough, instead of turning down the hallway to get to the bedroom she thought of as theirs, she turned the other way, guiding them down the hallway at the end of which were situated the guest rooms. When they reached the door to the smaller of the two guest rooms, she put her hand on the doorknob. "Close your eyes."

Jane balked. "Seriously?" They had rules, and one of them involved eyes.

"Close them, or I'll be forced to hold my hand over them instead."

Jane sighed, but closed her eyes. She heard the doorknob turn and the door swing open (no creaks - the hinges had been oiled recently - but a little brush of door against carpeting, and the cooler air of a room that had been closed. Jane let herself be led inside. "What are we doing?" she asked, trusting Maura, but wanting to know exactly which activity (activities?) to psyche up for. There was no answer. Tempted to open her eyes after all, Jane nevertheless kept them closed, sensing nothing but emptiness around her. "What's going on?"

"Open your eyes."

Jane blinked until her focus came in clearly, then blinked again. "Where's the bed?" she wondered, glancing around and then adding, "Where's the dresser? Where are the books?"

"Not here," Maura replied with a smile, pleased with herself. "The closets are empty, too, and so are the built-in drawers. This room is just waiting to be filled."

"I don't get it," Jane said after a long moment, chin pulling back in her classic way to demonstrate wariness and a withholding of judgment.

Maura gestured all around as if the hills were alive with the sound of music. "Don't you see it? Look at the possibilities, Jane. What do you want to do in here?"

One eyebrow spocked upwards. "Anything?" Jane asked, thinking she knew where this was going. "Because if I had my way, we wouldn't be in here, we'd be in the _other_ guest room. Or your room. The ones with the beds in them."

A giggle pealed out, and Maura rushed up to embrace her girlfriend. "That is a great idea, and I want that too. But first, I think you should consider what to do in here. It is, after all, your office."

Her mouth moved, forming the words 'my office' without voicing them. Both of Jane's eyebrows lifted in surprise to this little revelation. "Maura, this is a bit bigger than a drawer. Or closet space." Her voice was a little weak as she spoke. "You're giving me a _room_?" At Maura's nod, Jane stepped further into the room, looking at a space that was about the same size as her living room. Empty built-in book cases, no furniture, and its own exit door leading out to the back patio. This room was not picked at random.

Suddenly apprehensive, Maura asked, "Do you like it?" Jane wasn't saying anything. "I can put everything back," she rushed. "I just moved it into storage, it won't take all that long -"

"This is the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me, Maura," Jane exhaled, her back still to her girlfriend as she decorated in her mind. "I mean, it even tops the flowers." Glancing back over her shoulder, Jane blushed a little, "I can't believe you did this for me."

"I can't believe," Maura said as she slipped her arms around Jane's waist and pressed against her back, "that I didn't think to do it until now. Well, until your last trip out of town. You told me what you needed. I _was_ listening, and I _did_ take it into consideration, as I gave my word to do. I should have thought of it before, but I realized that even though I've been thinking of this as our home, all you could see was what my decorator and I had picked out, and nothing of yours."

She kissed the spot between the taller woman's shoulder blades. "The rest of the house, we can negotiate little by little. Some things will stay and some things will go, and we can bring in more things that suit your personality as you decide what they should be. But this is a start. You can shut the door, lock it, come and go to get fresh air or to get out of the house when you want... and because the door closes and locks, your mother won't see it at all, until you're ready to show her that you have space here. It's all yours. And if there's something you don't have, and you think your office needs it, the _second_ part of the gift is that I'll get it for you. Whatever it is."

Jane leaned back against Maura, taking the doctor's hands in her own. "See, and I was just going to tell you I made reservations at that French place you like so much, to apologize for being pig headed and argumentative about stuff." She brought one of Maura's hands up to kiss. "So how about you go change, we'll go out, and then we'll play in one of the rooms that has, y'know, blinds. Or curtains," she added, impishly.

"Hmmm," Maura hummed contentedly, cheek resting against Jane's back. "Mmkay. You change, too, though. I want to see that new suit that I know you bought last week." They parted ways, Jane to shower and change in the guest bath and Maura in her own. There was ample room for both in the master bath, but sometimes they liked to surprise one another with their 'date' appearances.

As Maura stepped into her bedroom, already unzipping her work dress, she paused. A brand new _Twister!_ game was sitting in the middle of the bed, the plastic removed, but otherwise looking as pristine as it had just come from the factory. "Jane," she called, but her girlfriend had already turned on the water for her shower, and didn't hear her. _But there's no floor space,_ her mind protested in puzzlement. _Why bring it in here, when we'll only have to take it back out to the living room to play? The only place in here that's big enough is the bed - Oh._

Her smile grew warmer as she finished stripping down for her shower. She'd skip dessert tonight at dinner, in the interest of getting home just that little bit earlier.

**The End... For Now**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you've found, the Occupy Movement had nothing to do with the plot, save to distract you and act as a red herring. Still, calling this a 'lighter' story seems inaccurate. The issues raised by the Occupy 'movement' are not to be taken lightly. There are serious problems in the world, many of which are being ignored by the media. Human rights are violated and the law is being applied unfairly. For many police officers, they're caught in-between the worlds. In this fic, we offer no solutions and only demonstrate people thinking about the problem.
> 
> There's no perfect answer to this, so we ask that you think instead. Think. Learn. Look up information and read both sides of the story.
> 
> The dangling plot threads left in this fic are intentional. Some will be picked up in the next fic.
> 
> **Reviews, even ones about how we suck, make us write more.**


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